We’ve spent the last couple of months talking about the importance of a well-planned onboarding program, and the same level of preparation and communication lends itself to success any time, most especially when you’re heading into a new fiscal year. For many organizations, the calendar flip to 2025 brings a slate of early-year tasks for managers - prior-year business reviews, goal setting, employee performance reviews, potential promotions and raises, and others. It can be chaotic, disorganized, and rushed, almost like a continuation of the holiday season itself.
While we know that not every organization resets its fiscal year in January, a new calendar year brings a feeling of resolve and a fresh start. If you’re a manager looking at a hectic start to 2025, we thought we’d share some ideas on how you can lay the foundation now for a successful beginning of the new year.
Understand Your Responsibilities: Every organization has a different schedule for goal setting, performance reviews, year-end reviews, and other tasks, so it’s important that you have a handle on the expectations and deadlines for all of these assignments. Coordinate with your boss, HR, and other stakeholders to understand your responsibilities, as they will likely sit on top of other work expectations. Get organized, adding deadlines to your calendar and mapping out smaller targets that help you deliver on time.
Foster Open Communication: Talk openly about performance reviews and your company’s policies around bonuses, promotions, and raises. Talk about timing and each teammate’s responsibilities/tasks, and help them understand what each performance rating level means. Explain how performance reviews and ratings might impact merit raises, promotions, and bonus payouts. If you know that budgets for raises or bonuses will be tight, be transparent. If you have a new hire who will not participate in performance reviews and/or who is not eligible for bonuses, promotions, or raises in the upcoming cycle, communicate openly with them about these policies and timelines for when they will participate/be eligible.
Review Performance Metrics: Revisit those 2024 goals and metrics…hopefully, you and your team have been discussing their progress quarterly. Now it's time to evaluate how your team performed as a whole and individually. Make notes for performance reviews, highlighting key achievements and areas for improvement. Set up time with your stakeholders to understand their thoughts on your team’s performance.
Understand 2025 Expectations from Leadership: Before you set goals, it’s important to understand what your leadership team and stakeholders have planned for 2025. Have direct conversations about your team’s 2024 performance, leadership’s expectations for 2025, and any new business initiatives that will fall onto your team.
Involve Your Team in Strategic Planning: Be direct with your team about their 2024 performance and the expectations from leadership for 2025, and involve your team in planning and goal setting. Set annual and quarterly goals for the entire team together, keeping an eye on strategic business objectives.
Check-In: Before a formal performance review conversation, extend 1-on-1 time or schedule special 1-on-1 meetings with each teammate to discuss the year and their expectations for 2025. Recognize their accomplishments. Call out any areas where someone is underperforming or not meeting expectations (hopefully you’ve already made this part of your 1-on-1 conversations). This is a great time to gain insight into their perspective: on their performance, roadblocks, expectations for a promotion and/or raise, and what they hope to accomplish in 2025. Work with them on individual quarterly goals that align with the broader quarterly and annual goals for the team.
Seek Training Opportunities: If there are conferences, certifications, or other training opportunities that you’d like for your team, bring those up now. You may be able to take advantage of unused training budget from 2024, early bird deals, or just get the money earmarked in the 2025 budget. Look for opportunities to upskill everyone on your team, not just the people with enough foresight to ask for support.
With the usual chaos of year-end and the holiday season, planning for 2025 might seem like an added stress that you’re not ready to tackle in December. But take it from us - even a little planning can go a long way. If you need help wrapping up your 2024 hiring, getting a start on 2025 hiring, or need some help organizing your 2025 plan, call SymphonicHCM.
Kommentare