Project Example Leadership

Legal compliance and workplace leadership

In a large business division of an international financing services provider, the increasing intervention of the HR department has been required in recent months due to openly waged conflicts between employees. Concrete corporate goals, direct instructions issued by management staff and collective agreements met by the teams are being repeatedly questioned and rejected by a number of employees. As a result, the atmosphere in the teams of employees and line managers is perceived as critical. ?Many of the line managers do not consider themselves able to address the behavior of the employees concerned or to change it for the better in the long term. They are unsure about the behavior that they can expect and demand of their staff and also about which labor legislation measures could apply in the case of grave violations. ?On the initiative of the HR Department, the managers affected are to train legally compliant leadership behavior in an intensive practical workshop and afterwards address their own personal subjects pro-actively, clearly and consistently. Once the first workshops begin, the HR Department continues to receive more and more requests from management staff that the participating group be extended to include all the managers of this business division and the catalog of labor legislation questions expanded to include the constructive handling of low performers.

• Development of a workshop concept with due consideration of the company-specific procedure pertaining to labor-legislative issues
•  Organization of a "Legal Compliance and Workplace Leadership" workshop in cooperation with lawyers specializing in labor legislation – working examples, case studies and exercises on: expectable employee behavior from the employer perspective; labor legislative intervention options in the case of critical employee behavior in regard to colleagues, supervisors, clients
• Expansion of workshop content to incorporate general basic labor legislation know-how and conducive options for dealing with low performers
• Organization of workshops throughout the entire business division
• Workshop supplements in the form of "Practical Experience Consultations" on site: possibility for members of management staff for individual and intensive reflection on their respective issues together with consultants