Year-end can be a drastically different experience depending on the role you occupy within your organization. For some employees, year-end means a slower workflow that allows them to finish up work plans, close out budgets and pre-plan for the coming year. Unfortunately, for most human capital management (HCM) professionals, year-end offers the unenviable task of wrapping up one fiscal year while simultaneously planning for the next. Luckily, there is something you can do about it. Whether your role focuses on payroll, finance and administration, human resources or all of the above, thinking about year-end throughout the year can actually put you in a position to avoid feeling overworked and run down leading up to the holidays.

Analyze and evaluate your data multiple times

December rolls around once a year but it doesn’t mean you can’t find other times to prepare for year-end. For starters, many of the systems used by HCM professionals provide valuable data that can be analyzed on an ongoing basis to flush out any inconsistencies or inaccuracies without the pressure of needing to resolve them with only a few weeks to go in the fiscal year. No system is truly foolproof, and minor errors will always occur. However, you can control how familiar you are with the data and proactively address these errors as they come up.

For example, analyzing an organizational T4 Report every quarter can ensure you have confidence in this data at year-end. Try using a checklist of guiding questions to ensure this review is consistent and thorough regardless of who performs it. Some examples include:

  • Are there any CPP or EI deficiencies among employees?
  • Did any employees move during the year, and will this impact their deductions?
  • Are multiple employees entering data? Were there any errors during data entry, such as confusing a start date for a birth date or accidentally adding a zero to a tuition cost?

Data is a powerful tool for any organization, but without analysis, management and testing throughout the year, many organizations are left scrambling to resolve issues at the last minute and end up duplicating mistakes that could have been flagged as key learnings months earlier.

Invest time in your tools and processes, but use key learnings to make adjustments

Shared tools and processes can help HCM professionals complete day-to-day tasks. However, without engaging multiple perspectives, they can quickly become anchors for your organization. If possible, engage multiple employees to work within these systems to build shared knowledge without over relying on one individual as the keeper of all information. These team members can share information on an ongoing basis and determine if certain ways of working no longer apply. For example, someone might assume automatically removing benefits from an employee’s former spouse following a divorce might be a proactive step to take, until they learn that their settlement includes benefits being maintained and now a medical evaluation is required to re-add them.

A commitment to ongoing learning and improvement can create additional opportunities for HCM professionals to champion change in their organizations by understanding their systems and processes as reflecting a point in time, and not necessarily being set in stone. Take, for example, a routine review of an organization’s benefits plan. If you notice a certain type of benefit, such as accidental death, has never been claimed based on the type of work you do, you might recommend revisiting and converting that premium into a health-care spending account that can benefit your entire workforce. These types of opportunities will only present themselves if you are actively looking for ways to adapt, learn and enhance how you work on an ongoing basis. Doing this regularly means you can place important changes in the queue and avoid the stress of another item on your to-do list for year-end.

New year, new opportunities for improvement

Once year-end is finished, it’s natural for organizations to want to move ahead with the new year while putting the past one behind them. However, by committing to proactive work practices throughout the year, year-end will be viewed less as an arduous task to “get through” and more as an opportunity to validate your preparation from the last 11 months:

  • Document lessons learned: As much as it can be difficult to remember, try to document lessons learned throughout the year with a formal debrief shortly after year-end. This will allow you to learn from past mistakes without repeating them, and apply changes to systems or ways of working to improve efficiency and accuracy across all members of your team.
  • Utilize your professional networks and associations: Ensure you are taking time to educate yourself through your professional network and the various learning opportunities offered by professional associations. National Payroll Institute offers several innovative tools, like Ask Pat, an accessible payroll knowledge navigation tool that allows members to access compliance and best practice information on an ongoing basis. This is a great way to ensure you are receiving up-to-date information in real time from a trusted source.
  • Communicate early and often: Communications from HCM professionals should help employees access and understand information consistently across your organization. Using simple videos like the Own Your Pay series from the National Payroll Institute can build financial literacy among all employees, while leaving you time to work through individual questions or issues on a one-on-one basis.
  • Embrace early year-end: Try a dress rehearsal, or “early year-end,” to test your systems and approaches without the pressure of a looming deadline. This can be as simple as making a personal checklist, checking your formulas and reorienting yourself with the reports that will be provided by your various systems. Over time, this practice will increase your confidence and make year-end feel like less of a daunting task.

Year-end doesn’t necessarily garner the same level of enthusiasm for HCM professionals as for other employees. Come December, many payroll, finance and administration, and human resources departments can be found working furiously to meet their deadlines without much time to take a break, let alone celebrate the year that was. However, by working in a way that lightens the load so year-end is the culmination of the previous 11 months of preparation, you might actually be able to take some time to chat with your colleagues at the holiday celebration rather than staring at your screen wondering why certain numbers just won’t add up.





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