Advanced Industrial Relations Negotiations
Strengthen your negotiation planning, stakeholder alignment, decision-making and execution within todayʼs legal and industrial relations environment.
Advanced Industrial Relations Negotiations Overview
Enterprise bargaining is now more complex, visible and consequential for employers.
This program helps leaders and practitioners strengthen their negotiation planning, stakeholder alignment, decision-making and execution within todayʼs legal and industrial relations environment.
Delivered jointly by Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer and Melbourne Business School, it combines current IR insight with practical negotiation and executive learning expertise to help participants make better decisions and perform more effectively in high-stakes bargaining settings.
What You Will Learn
Recent industrial relations reforms have delivered to unions and employees a significant increase in bargaining power, and we are seeing that translate across industries into more ambit claims, less willingness to compromise, and more drawn-out negotiations.
In this program participants will learn how to prepare, manage complexity and apply negotiation strategy within todayʼs legal and industrial relations environment.
Including how to;
- Understand how IR reforms are changing bargaining dynamics
- Plan for complex two-level and multi-party negotiations
- Align stakeholders, mandates and decision pathways
- Assess risk, trade-offs and minimum acceptable outcomes
- Use negotiation strategy, signalling and communication more deliberately
- Apply systems thinking to live bargaining contexts
Through tailored case material, applied discussion, negotiation exercises and structured debriefs, participants work through the legal, strategic and behavioural dimensions of enterprise bargaining in ways that are directly relevant to their roles. Jennifer Overbeck A strong emphasis is placed on experiential learning and peer exchange. Participants engage in simulations, reflect on their own bargaining context, and learn in a confidential setting that supports candid discussion and practical application. The result is a learning experience that builds both conceptual understanding and the confidence to apply that learning in live bargaining situations.
Who Should Attend
This program is designed for participants with some exposure to negotiation, enterprise bargaining or related workplace and industrial relations matters. While it is pitched at an advanced level, it is intended to be accessible to participants bringing different forms of relevant experience.
| Audience | Why they should attend |
|---|---|
| AudienceIndustrial relations and employee relations practitioners, enterprise bargaining leads, and HR leaders with direct bargaining responsibility | Why they should attendBuild stronger capability in negotiation planning, stakeholder alignment, risk management and enterprise bargaining execution in today’s industrial relations environment. |
| AudienceOperational leaders, in-house legal advisers, workplace relations professionals, and senior decision makers who influence bargaining outcomes | Why they should attendDevelop a sharper understanding of bargaining dynamics, legal and strategic constraints, and the internal decisions that shape successful employer-side negotiations. |
This program is for people who lead, advise on or influence enterprise bargaining and complex workplace negotiations, including those in industrial relations, employee relations, legal, HR and operational roles.
- Industrial Relations Managers and Employee Relations Managers
- Enterprise Bargaining Leads and Workplace Relations Specialists
- HR Directors, Heads of People and Senior HR Business Partners
- In-house Legal Counsel and Employment Law Advisers
- Operations Leaders and General Managers involved in workforce decisions
- Senior leaders who sponsor, approve or shape bargaining strategy
Key Takeaways
By the end of the program, participants will be better equipped to lead, contribute to and support enterprise bargaining negotiations with greater clarity, confidence and strategic discipline.
Industrial Relations Reforms
Enterprise Bargaining
Negotiation Frameworks
Bargaining Dynamics
Systems Thinking
Bargaining Thresholds, Trade-offs and Minimum Acceptable Outomces
Negotiation Strategy
Signalling and Communication
In this new world of industrial relations, there is no question that the enterprise bargaining environment is more challenging.
This program has been designed as the first step in an employer's pre-bargaining planning.
ROHAN DOYLE - Partner Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer
Expand or Deepen the Capabilities of Your People
At Melbourne Business School, we can customise our programs to deliver bespoke leadership learning experiences for your organisation.
Our team collaborates with your organisation on a discovery process to identify opportunities and outline duration and delivery preferences.
Program Enquiry
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JENNIFER OVERBECK
Professor of Management, Associate Dean, Research
Topics Covered
Participants will explore the legal, strategic and behavioural dimensions of enterprise bargaining through a focused set of topics designed to build practical capability in high-stakes industrial relations negotiations.
The contemporary industrial relations landscape
Bargaining reform and the changing risk environment
Strategic planning for enterprise bargaining negotiations
Multi-party bargaining dynamics and complexity
Internal alignment, mandates and decision pathways
Negotiation simulation and practical debrief
Systems thinking in industrial relations negotiation
Negotiation strategy, signalling and influence
Program Director
The Advanced Industrial Relations Negotiations program is delivered by some of the leading faculty from Melbourne Business School, who have deep subject matter expertise and have consulted and worked with a wide variety of organisations, as well as Industrial Relations expertise from Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer.
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