The end-of-year HR checklist: What to wrap up before December 31

December hits and suddenly your inbox is flooded with urgent requests—finance wants final reports, and leadership needs documentation for annual reviews—all while half your team is already mentally on vacation.

Every HR professional faces this year-end crunch, but with the right checklist, you can wrap up the essentials without working through New Year's Eve.

• Complete annual performance reviews. Get those final evaluations submitted. If you're still chasing managers for reviews, send one last reminder with a hard deadline. Late reviews mess up promotion cycles and compensation planning for next year.
  
• Document major HR incidents: Compile records of significant workplace incidents, disciplinary actions, or policy violations. Having clean documentation protects your organization and helps identify patterns for future prevention.
  
• Update employee handbook changes: Push through any policy updates sitting in draft. Better to implement changes now than carry them into January when everyone's focused on new initiatives.

• Finalize mandatory training compliance. Check who still needs to complete required training programs before year-end deadlines. Send automated reminders to stragglers—Go1's completion tracking makes it easy to identify exactly who's behind and on what courses.
  
• Generate training reports for leadership. Pull completion rates, engagement metrics, and skills development progress. Your leadership team will want these numbers for annual reviews and budget planning. Go1's analytics dashboard can generate these reports automatically, saving you hours of manual data compilation.
  
• Archive compliance documentation: Organize all training certificates, completion records, and compliance reports in one accessible location. A robust learning platform maintains permanent records of all employee training, making future audits and compliance reviews much smoother—Go1's system handles this automatically without manual filing.

Callout: How GT's Living Foods solved their compliance scramble

After switching to Go1, GT’s small L&D team transformed its approach to mandatory training—and increased its rate of active learners by 3x.

• Process flexible spending account deadlines. Remind employees about FSA and HSA contribution deadlines. Send clear communication about use-it-or-lose-it policies and any grace periods.
  
• Confirm benefit enrollment changes: Double-check open enrollment submissions processed correctly. Verify dependent coverage changes and ensure all paperwork is complete before insurance carriers close their books.
  
• Update payroll for new year: Coordinate with payroll on tax table updates, benefit deduction changes, and any compensation adjustments taking effect January 1.

• Review turnover and retention data: Retention is on everyone’s mind—in fact, 4 million U.S. workers quit in June 2022 alone. To stay ahead of the curve, analyze your own departure patterns from this year. Which departments lost the most people? When did exits spike? This data shapes your retention strategy and helps justify training investments.
  
• Plan Q1 onboarding capacity: January brings new hires, and you need systems ready. Ensure your onboarding programs are updated and accessible. Pre-built learning paths can streamline new employee training from day one.
  
• Conduct exit interview analysis: Review feedback from departing employees. Common themes in exit interviews often point to gaps in management training or career development—areas where targeted learning programs can make a real difference.

• Conduct a skills gap analysis: Skillsets are expected to change by 50% by 2027. Review this year's performance data and manager feedback to identify emerging skill needs. Go1's analytics can show you which competencies your teams are developing and where gaps remain.
  
• Audit technology: Ensure your training covers new tools and platforms your organization will adopt. Go1's tech-focused content library stays current with the latest software and digital literacy training.

• Finalize training budget utilization: Most companies spend $501-$1,000 per employee on L&D. Calculate how much of your own learning and development budget you've used. Unused funds might disappear, while documented ROI from training programs helps justify increased budgets for next year.
  
• Prepare headcount reports: Leadership needs accurate employee counts for financial reporting and strategic planning. Include breakdowns by department, role level, and employment type.
  
• Document cost-saving initiatives: Compile data on HR initiatives saving the company money this year. Reduced turnover from better management training, fewer incidents from safety programs, or improved efficiency from skills development all translate to dollars saved.

With Go1, you can streamline your year-end training compliance with Go1's automated reporting and tracking features. Our platform handles the heavy lifting on completion monitoring and analytics generation, giving you time to focus on strategic initiatives.  

Book a call to see how Go1 can simplify your HR operations in the new year.