The holidays and the new year are fast approaching. Before your attention turns entirely to holiday cards and gift lists, remember to set aside some time to ensure you have reviewed and completed any HR items that need to be completed before year end. I’ve included a list of those items below.
Also, in light of recent sexual harassment issues across industries, it’s a good time to review your harassment policies, and to schedule anti-harassment training.
If you are an employer with 50 or more employees, you are required by California law to provide at least two hours of sexual harassment training to all supervisory employees within 6 months of their becoming a supervisor. You also must repeat the training at least once every two years. This training must also include anti-bullying training.
All employers, no matter their size, must take reasonable steps to prevent discrimination and harassment from occurring. Learn about your requirements as an employer here. Although the training requirement applies only to supervisory employees, we recommend that all employees receive training to prevent sexual harassment and abusive conduct.
Here’s a checklist of other items to complete before year end. Be sure to add any items relative to your particular business that you don’t see here.
- Order any updated Federal and State Labor Law Posters
- Review your employee handbook to identify any changes needed based on new laws, policies and/or procedures
- Review and update employee addresses in preparation for W-2 distribution
- Review and update job descriptions
- Finalize the HR Budget for 2018
- Finalize focal process for 2018
- Finalize company goals
- Determine dates of company holidays for 2018
- Finalize and announce any new benefits/employee perks for 2018
- Renew any annual memberships and subscriptions
- Schedule annual reviews with employees
- Deal with any lingering employee relations issues
In addition, think back over the year and reflect on what went well and what didn’t go well from an HR standpoint. Are your employees engaged and productive? If not, do you see any trends that you could work on turning around in 2018? Are there any employees who stand out as particularly high potential? How will you develop and retain them in 2018?
Giving some thought to these things now, and then putting a plan in place to address them after the first of the year will get 2018 off to a good start!
If you would like to schedule an HR Audit, or need help creating or updating your Employee Handbook, please contact me at michelle@connecttohr.com.