Time flies when you’re having fun, and also when you’ve been managing your entire company’s employee records, leave, reviews, training, and so much more! New Year’s marks new beginnings, bringing you back to work feeling rejuvenated and motivated.
Now is the opportune time to create enthusiastic, obtainable, and sustainable HR goals for the new year. Here are our New Year’s resolutions for HR professionals:
1. I Will Create and Use Templates Instead of Reinventing the Wheel
We have a saying at HR Partner that if you’re typing the same message or sending out the same process twice, make a template for it! HR Managers already have a lot on their to-do lists, so why waste time repeating yourself?
In HR Partner, you can create numerous email templates for different needs. These templates can be used whether you’re inviting a candidate to interview for a position, notifying your employees to complete their performance review, or even reaching out to employees with a birthday acknowledgment message. Need help writing the perfect email template? We’ve added AI capabilities to assist you with crafting any message.
Our Checklist feature allows you to combine task items for both employees and admins to complete. HR Managers can save time by creating checklists for different purposes, like onboarding and offboarding. For example, you won’t need to start from scratch and recall each task that needs to be completed every time you hire someone new. With an onboarding checklist template, you can simply send off the appropriate onboarding process you’ve created so they can get started reading your handbook, signing policies, and watching new hire orientation videos.
2. I Will Prevent Employee Issues by Being Prepared with the Right Policies
When the right policies are in place, you can breathe easier knowing your team is supported and your employees know what’s expected of them. When employees are unaware of company policy, expectations, and rules, this can contribute to unintentional infringements. This year, make it a priority to have the right policies in place and easily accessible to your employees. This creates a more transparent culture for expectations and reduces employee issues by decreasing the chance of misunderstandings.
Check out our blog HR Document Management: Must Have Policies & Procedures!
3. I Will Create Forms for Common Employee Requests
Imagine if employees were able to submit their inquiries to you via a form, instead of pinging you each time. In the effort to save you time, this year, you can dedicate focus to creating forms for common employee requests and inquiries.
In HR Partner, you can create multiple forms for unique purposes to collect information from your employees. HR managers can send these forms to employees either individually, or in a group, wait for them to fill them in, then look at the information they submitted. Forms can also be created to be readily accessible to employees in their portals.
Here are examples of forms you might want to create:
- Training requests
- Technology purchase requests
- Remuneration changes (eg for managers to submit relating to their team members)
- Incident reports
- And really anything else you can think of!
4. I Will Empower Managers to Actually Manage their Teams
HR leaders frequently have a lot on their plate, and it may be time to empower your managers instead of making them so reliant on HR. Although you may feel things get done faster if you do it yourself, this mentality doesn’t create room for growth. Giving managers the access and tools they need to manage their teams, not only frees up their own time to focus on their projects but can also create growth in managers! Delegation builds trust in the manager-employee relationship, thus fostering a positive work culture. It’s a win-win!
In HR Partner, you can get your managers involved in managing their personnel but have customizable permissions on exactly how much access you’d like them to have. You can also customize approval rules for your employees’ leave requests, expense claims, and timesheets!
5. I Will Set up a Performance Review Structure
Employees appreciate knowing how they are doing in their role and clarity on the goals they should be working towards. Feedback and recognition are essential to your employees’ job satisfaction. Although creating the performance reviews, cadence, and structure may seem like it’s just creating more work for HR managers, they are crucial for effective management.
See how you can make performance reviews easy and effective!
6. I Will Create Dedicated Office Hours for Employee Inquiries
HR managers and leaders juggle multiple tasks and deliverables daily. Time to focus on these duties is required to be able to complete them on time. As managers, you should be accessible to your direct reports – but that doesn’t mean you need to be accessible at all times. If we’re always accessible to all questions, completing your HR projects will take longer than it should. Having periods of uninterrupted working time is crucial for being a strategic and effective HR leader – and it’s actually not that hard to do by setting up designated HR query times.
This way, you can have heads-down time to focus on your projects and deliverables. This might take some training for team members to become accustomed to the new system, but they’ll learn soon enough that you are happy to address their query in the designated time. Of course, if something urgent comes up, you may need to be flexible, but usually, these situations are very rare!
7. I Vow to Switch Off at the End of the Day (You’ve Earned It!)
Whether you’re tackling your HR duties or exercising your soft or analytical skills (or both), you’re working hard and deserve to switch off from work at the end of the day. Taking your work home with you can be tiresome and emotionally draining. So once you close that company laptop or get in your vehicle to commute home, vow to shut off your work brain, kick up your feet, and do whatever it is that helps you unwind. Remember, your wellness comes first!
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The beginning of the new year marks an opportunity to start anew. Make this the year you tackle your HR goals and truly establish the structure and culture you envision for yourself and your HR team. We promise it will make all the difference to your impact!
Christina Kryske
HRIS Customer Success Champion