Wrapping up the Year End

With crisp mornings and equally cool evenings, vibrant autumn shades being displayed in abundance, and everything flavored with pumpkin and spice, fall is officially here. The kiddos are back in school and many of us find ourselves back in our groove with work projects as lazy summer days are far behind us. With the year quickly coming to a close, it is a great opportunity to reflect back on past year and determine what your organization has yet to check off your end-of-year list and accomplish in this final quarter.

Human Resources

After reviewing your organization’s budget, determine if it is feasible to offer any incentives or bonuses at the end of the calender year (if this is a regular practice within your company). Take a look at staffing needs and ascertain any departments that require new positions or have any vacancies and create a recruiting plan to implement. Take a look at internal policies and procedures and proactively plan for anything that needs updated accordingly, including any projected changes to state and federal labor law.

General Organization

From a technological perspective, take advantage of the 4th quarter to back up your data and purge or archive anything that is no longer necessary. Go through files on your desktop, email folders, and client data and clean house. Backup contacts and download any large documents to an external hard drive or to a cloud sharing system. On the more tangible side, go through your desk and file cabinets and drawers and shred, scan, and electronically file any documents that you no longer need physical copies of. Organize your desk space and make it fresh and neat for the new year.

Business and Marketing

From a very basic level, take a look at your website and social media pages. Is your company presented in an accurate manner that best reflects the culture and services/products provided? Test hyperlinks and general navigation on your website to ensure that visitors are provided with the information they are searching for, and update as necessary. Are recent posts to social media relevant and receiving adequate likes/shares?

There are so many things we can check off our lists when planning for the end of the year, or the 4th quarter. In addition to HR, general business operations, and marketing other areas to review include accounting and payroll, strategic planning, and sales. This month we will discuss wrapping up this year’s goals and looking ahead to new objectives, review what may have gone wrong with this year’s projects that did not reach fruition and how to bounce back, and how to effectively plan for the new year.