Recruitment, Rostering and Performance Conversations for Practice Managers
This course helps practice managers write a role people will apply for, select and induct staff fairly, build a roster from the practice’s own data, and hold a performance conversation that would stand up later.
Already completed this training? Quick refresher
A quick reminder for experienced staff. Revisit only what you need.
- Assess the advertised duties with consistent evidence; verify current registration where required.
- Count usable coverage after supervision and required breaks, including absence cover.
- Check evidence and hear the employee’s account before proposing a performance response.
Open the lessons and tools. Use current local procedures and sources.
This optional refresher does not record a new completion. Certificates require the full course and its assessments.
Who it is for
Practice managers and owners of Australian general practices. In most practices the practice manager prepares these decisions and the owner or principal GP makes the ones that hire, warn or dismiss; the course is written for that split. It is professional development, not accredited CPD, and not legal advice: employment rules are stated as at September 2026, with the Fair Work and ATO pages to check them against.
What you’ll practise
- Turning a vague advertisement into a role description, with the award, classification and employment basis settled first.
- Scoring interview evidence, interviewing alone, and the checks before day one: right to work, Ahpra registration, immunisation status, confidentiality agreement, individual logins.
- An induction record per person, plus what a new nurse needs.
- Rostering from phone reports and appointment arrivals, starting from staff’s agreed hours, with private information kept off the roster.
- A fair performance conversation, the steps before any warning, and the dismissal rules for small employers.
How it works
Six short case-based lessons, then two automatically scored assessments. Allow about 45 minutes, including the assessments.
Pass the knowledge assessment with at least 80% and the safety decisions assessment with 100%; read the feedback and retry as needed. The final case is practice and does not count towards your result.
The people and practice in this course are made up. Rivergum General Practice is used for every example.
Explore the lessons
- Define the work before advertising
- Run a fair selection process, even when you interview alone
- The first thirty days: induction that reaches people
- Build the roster from real inputs
- Prepare a fair performance conversation
- Final practice activity — Two rosters and a new starter
Sources (checked 29 September 2026)
- Fair Work: Hiring employees
- Fair Work: Protection from discrimination
- Health Professionals and Support Services Award 2020 (MA000027) (summary)
- Nurses Award 2020 (MA000034)
- Fair Work: Award changes
- Fair Work: Hours, breaks and rosters
- Fair Work: Right to disconnect
- Fair Work: Casual employees becoming permanent
- Fair Work: Managing underperformance
- Fair Work: Unfair dismissal
- ATO: Super guarantee rate
- ATO: Payday Super payment deadlines
- Ahpra: Check your employees’ registration
- Safe Work Australia: Job demands
Keep a one-page desk guide
Open the printable desk guides (PDF), page 7. Print just that page for this course.