New manager Training Foundations
New manager training for the full employee lifecycle
On Friday they were your colleagues. On Monday you're their manager — and no one teaches you that part.
Overview
A complete, four-module development program that takes your first-time and frontline managers through the full arc of the employment relationship — from the first job posting to the final day — and equips them to handle each stage legally, fairly, and with confidence. Scenario-based, grounded in current BC employment law and case law, and delivered in facilitated sessions in person or virtually across British Columbia.
Most managers are promoted for excelling at the work, then have to learn an entirely different job — leading people, often the very colleagues and friends they worked beside — on exactly the situations that carry the most legal and human risk. This program closes that gap on purpose, before the mistakes happen.
For HR and senior leaders, the stake is different but just as real: every untrained manager is a live exposure, and the first 90 days of a new manager's tenure — the first difficult conversation with a former peer, the first accommodation request, the first performance problem left to drift — is where most of the damage is done. Manager Foundations gives your whole management layer one consistent, defensible standard for handling those moments.
Who it is for
New and newly promoted managers, team leads, and supervisors
Managers now leading former peers
Experienced managers who never received structured leadership development
HR and People & Culture professionals who want a consistent standard across their management layer
Executive Directors, CEOs, directors, and heads of HR equipping the leaders below them
At a glance: Four modules · four half-day sessions · in person, virtual, or hybrid · practice-based · adapted to your workplace
Looking for respectful-workplace or investigation training?
Manager Foundations covers the employment lifecycle. If what you need is training on respectful workplaces, harassment complaints, and how to run or oversee an investigation, see Respectful Workplace Investigations.
The lifecycle, four modules
Module 1
Recruit, Select & Onboard
Hiring that attracts talent without inviting complaints, and onboarding that sets people up to succeed — fair, structured, and legally sound from the first posting.
Module 2
Performance, Leave & Engagement
The daily work of management: clear expectations, honest coaching conversations, absence and leave, and catching disengagement early.
Module 3
Accommodation, Conflict & Investigations
The high-stakes situations managers can't improvise: accommodation requests, workplace conflict, and knowing their role when a complaint arises.
Module 4
Discipline, Termination & Offboarding
The decisions leaders dread, done fairly and lawfully — from progressive discipline to a professional, humane exit.
What your managers will be able to do
- Hire well, and fairly —
Run job postings, interviews, and selection to one structured standard — stronger hires, defensible decisions, and materially less exposure to discrimination complaints.
- Get the best from their team —Set clear expectations and hold honest, constructive performance conversations that lift results and engagement, instead of letting problems drift until they become disputes — including knowing when a performance improvement plan is the right next step.
- Handle accommodation and leave without freezing —
Managers, not HR, are usually the first person told. They will recognise when the duty to accommodate is triggered, know the leave entitlements they will actually encounter, and understand where the employer's obligation ends and the employee's own responsibility begins.
- Manage discipline and departures fairly —
Run corrective conversations properly and, when it comes to termination, understand reasonable notice and how to end an employment relationship humanely — protecting the person's dignity and the organization at the same time.
See it before you book.
Get the program overview and a sample activity your managers would actually run. No form wall.
Download the free overviewWhy it holds up
Every module is built on real BC decisions — not generic best practice — so what your managers learn is what actually governs them. Grounded in current BC employment law and the BC Human Rights Code.
Delivery
Facilitated by a senior HR practitioner, in person, virtual, or hybridly across BC. Four half-day sessions, customised to your organization's context and language.
Sessions are built around practice, not lecture. Managers sort lawful from unlawful interview questions, decide how to classify a real absence, work through an accommodation request end to end, and run a termination conversation as a role play against a checklist — then get feedback on what they actually did.
Facilitation is led by a practitioner holding CPHR, SHRM-SCP, SPHR, CCP and GRP designations, with hands-on BC employment law experience.
Delivered in person in Vancouver, Surrey, Burnaby and Richmond, and virtually across BC.
Frequently Asked Questions
Part of our Organizational Learning & Development (L&D) Consulting practice.
Senior HR Leadership and Execution
Working Style
Practical, scenario-based learning designed for active participation and lasting behaviour change.
Best Fit
Managers promoted without structured leadership development
Organizations wanting current, BC-specific manager training
Teams where prior training investment has not produced visible results
Highly Credentialed HR Partner
Our team holds some of Canada's and North America's most respected senior credentials in human resources, strategic people leadership, and workplace advisory.
A direct conversation with a senior HR consultant — no sales pitch, no pressure.
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Ready to close your manager-readiness gap?
Book a 45-minute fit call and we'll walk you through the full module outline and how it maps to what your managers are facing.