Fall Clean-Up: Year-End Planning for Your Organization's HR Needs

When the leaves begin to change colour and hit the ground, it’s a great time for organizations to embark on their own form of "fall clean-up." The latter part of the year presents an opportunity for Human Resources and Leadership teams to reflect, plan, and prepare for the upcoming year (yes, already). And, just like raking leaves makes room for new growth, clearing out old processes and planning for the future helps align the path for upcoming success.

Here’s a checklist to help you navigate the process and ensure you’re setting your staff, your leaders and your organization up for a productive new year.

Policy Review and Updates

Just like you would inspect your home for any maintenance needs before winter hits, this is a great time to review your HR policies and internal processes to ensure they're up to date and compliant with current legislation. Employment laws and regulations change, and your policies need to reflect those updates.

Have a look at your:

• Employee handbooks

• Privacy and information management policies

• Benefit and leave policies

• Remote or hybrid work arrangements

• Diversity, equity, and inclusion policies

• Code of Conduct and Respectful Workplace policies

Be sure that your policies align with the latest regulations, your company’s goals, and any changes in workplace norms.

Annual Development Plans

Shift your attention to developing or refining a training, development and succession plan for your staff for the new year.

A well-rounded plan includes:

• Compliance training: Ensure everyone is updated on required training, such as Occupational Health and Safety, respectful workplace and privacy.

• Leadership development: Focus on enhancing the skills of current and future leaders. Identifying and developing a pipeline of ready leaders is one of the keys to success for many organizations. It can serve to retain and engage your top talent and allow your organization to fill key vacancies when they arise.

• Skill development: Assess gaps within your employees, teams and plan for training and support that aids growth in critical areas.

Create a schedule for professional development initiatives throughout the year, accounting for optimal timing given annual business processes and events in your organization and industry.

Goal Setting for Next Year

Setting thoughtful, intentional, and strategic goals now can set your organization up for success in the coming year. Collaborate with department heads and key leaders to align each employee’s and team’s goals with overall business objectives.

Incorporate both individual and team goals in areas like:

• Organizational growth targets

• Project milestones

• Professional development

Provide clear direction and involve staff in their own goal setting to promote accountability and engagement. Individual SMART goals should support team goals and team goals should support organizational goals.

Performance Assessments

Year-end is a natural time for more formal performance evaluations. But in fact, actual performance evaluation just doesn't happen at year end. Ongoing informal and formal conversations should happen throughout the year. Involve individuals in their own assessments and gather feedback and data to evaluate the effectiveness of your team and address any performance issues.

Effective Performance Assessment Programs focus on:

• Self-assessments: Allow employees to reflect on their accomplishments and areas for improvement.

• Third party assessments: These can include peer and 360-degree assessments.

• Performance reviews: Leaders conduct thorough assessments to review how well individuals have met their goals and contributed to the team and the organization.

• Development plans: Use the assessments as an opportunity to build development plans that focus on growth for the upcoming year.

Employee Recognition and Engagement

Fall clean-up isn’t just about removing what’s unnecessary; it’s also about nurturing what’s thriving, and it’s always a great time to recognize the hard work and achievements of your team!

 Be intentional about:

• Celebrating accomplishments

• Providing meaningful recognition

• Gathering employee feedback on what’s working and what needs improvement

Building engagement now will help retain top talent and create a motivated team ready to take on the goals and challenges of the new year.

At Cenera, we have an incredible team of experts who specialize in all facets of the annual employee cycle. If your Leadership or HR team have need for support or guidance, we’d love to talk about how we can help. Learn more about our various services here and contact us to start a conversation.