The final quarter of each year can be frustrating for HR departments and managers, as many companies choose to freeze their budgets this time of year. However, there are plenty of ways you can prepare for next year without much, if any, investment in 2025.
Employee Communication: Keep staff informed about important year-end info like benefit changes, holiday schedules, and tax documentation. It’s always a good idea to remind them all that their W-2 will go to the address on file in your payroll system.
Employee handbook and policy updates: Review company policies to ensure they reflect current expectations, but also your culture as an employer. If your company has been in a growth pattern, make sure your handbook is scaled accordingly. Employee count can influence benefits, federal reporting requirements, and create a need for new policies and procedures, like FMLA.
Performance evaluations: If you haven’t done these before and it seems overwhelming to do it all and year-end, separate the staff into groups and create a schedule to tackle them quarterly in the coming year.
Compliance: Make sure your organization has completed (and documented) required annual OSHA training, professional licenses are renewed, trade organization memberships renewed, etc. Also be sure to review employee classifications, personnel files, etc.
Compensation: Review pay structures for both hourly and salary, as well as benefits packages. You can use market comparisons, feedback from former employees’ exit interviews, and feedback from current employees to ensure you’re staying competitive. Remember: proactively paying employees what they’re worth is often easier (and less costly) than trying to match or beat a competitor’s offer to get them to stay put.
Workforce Development: Leadership should discuss potential for employee training for all levels of staff. Look back on the issues that have come up this year. What kind of knowledge and skills could help your staff avoid those pitfalls next year? Your local Chambers of Commerce, trade organizations, and consulting firms may have a lot more to offer than you realize!
