I agree - but I'm not the director. And of course this is likely to end up with you being piggy in the middle when those managers and the director don't agree with the outcomes.

Hi Julie

I am with you: managers do the managing, HR supports them. We are not the organisation's police, CPS or judiciary, or industrial social workers, counselors or nannies. I don't think you will find any respondents on here who think that we should be. There have been many other threads on here where the issue of line managers trying to palm off any difficult conversations to HR has come up, but I can't think of any unifying search term that would find them all for you.

None of that helps you very much in your new role. There is no point in us setting you up for a conversation that goes "Oh no I don't" "Oh yes you do"and repeat and repeat and repeat.

Do all line managers have job descriptions and what do they say about who does the managing? I wouldn't advise you to charge into battle armed only with some JDs, but it would be interesting to know. It would also help us to advise if you could tell us a bit more about the situation:

When you say "my Director", is that the MD or CEO?
Who makes up your board/senior team and do they all share this view?
Do you know much about their backgrounds, i.e. have some of them experience in organisations where managers actually manage?
How long has this organisation existed and has it always run this way?

You need to make a realistic assessment of the situation and take a view on whether re-education is possible. Do not waste energy on unwinnable battles. If you are going to try to change this, you will need allies. Either way, it's going to be interesting!

In reply to David Perry:

Ha ha - so much more succinct than me!

In reply to Elizabeth Divver:

Thanks Elizabeth, it’s an established family run business the director is an owner, they have expanded very quickly in it seems a short time the HR dept in some aspects is still evolving which I do understand but it seems on this issue they seem adamant it’s a HR function

In reply to JULIE STEADMAN:

Its an HR function to make it happen well but not at the expense of undermining line managers who are clearly not trusted by the owner
I think it was a retail model and it was a model I inherited as a young man in my first stand alone role but gradually realised how wrong it was.
It is also a potentially risky strategy as it means the same person doing investigation and discipline.

As others have said its odd, has a lot of pitfalls and is not usual practice

But its what they do and part of the justification I guess for paying your salary.

You maybe able to change this policy over time by showing what value you can add doing other things, how its "better" for managers to do these meetings and as part of your professionalism of the firm.

But at end of the day if they want you to do it and over time you cant persuade them then its adapt or leave.