We know that 2020 has been a terrible year for some companies and a great year for other companies. If you are looking to get a head start to set your business up for success in 2021, these top HR priorities are a great place to start.
Feedback and Performance Reviews: Don’t miss this opportunity to review your current employees and reward those who have stepped up to help your business stay afloat this year. These types of reviews also give you permission to have those crucial conversations with employees who may not be operating at a consistent level. Performance Management should be an on-going process. Now is a great time to have career development discussions with all your employees.
Create or Refine Your Talent Plan: You may have had a significant decrease or increase in your numbers of employees. One of the top HR priorities to undertake, would be to refine your current plan or take this opportunity to create a Talent plan. Understanding the parts of your business where you need to add or modify talent, will set your organization for success this next year.
Develop a Talent Retention Strategy: Now is the time to take care of your top employees. These are the individuals who have been invaluable to your business and have gone above and beyond what is expected of them. Whether your business is going well or not so well, don’t let the opportunity to keep and/or reward these individuals pass by. The last thing you need is for one or more of your top employees to be poached by another company.
Focus on your Culture: Most companies are not back in the office 100%. If your employees are part in/part out of the office, or all outside the office, this can have a big impact on your culture. You can only do so many video lunches and after hours gatherings to keep morale high. Leaders need to put on their creative hats and even ask employees what would help keep a cohesive culture.
Compensation: You may not have had a great year, but now is not the time to throw your compensation adjustments out the window. Decide what the business can afford and have targeted increases or bonuses already in mind.
The reality is that these are the top HR priorities, your business and every business should be focusing on consistently. When so many things are up in the air, you owe it to your business and employees to provide some kind of normalcy when it comes to company culture and taking care of employees needs. At the end of the day/month/year you will have a big pay off if you consistently focus on these top HR priorities.