Preparing for the end of financial year: The HR things you need to be doing now
Preparing for the end of financial year: The HR things you need to be doing now
The end of financial year is looming, which means that there’s a lot for your business to do. Often, when it comes to the end of the financial year, the first things that come to mind tend to be things like tax returns, business activity statements, and strategic planning for the next year. However, there’s actually a lot that you also need to be doing from a people and HR perspective!
In this blog post, we’ll be looking at some of the things you need to be doing now as an employer to start preparing for the end of the financial year.
Without further ado, here are six of the key things you need to be thinking about from a HR perspective as your business approaches the end of the financial year!
- Finalising payroll: Your business might have an accountant or payroll team who takes care of your payroll. Or, this responsibility may fall to your HR department. Either way, it’s important that you finalise payroll for the end of the financial year, which means completing your payroll for all employees, and reporting this to the Australian Tax Office (ATO) via Single Touch Payroll (STP). You’ll also need to generate and issue payment summaries to all employees, ensure you have met your tax and superannuation obligations for all employees, and reconcile your year to date (YTD) reporting. You’ll also want to check if there have been any increases to the award rates and pay scales for your industry, so that any necessary adjustments can be made for the new financial year.
- Ensure the information you have about your employees is up to date: Technically speaking, this is something you can do at any time of the year, though the end of the financial year presents an opportune time to do so. You will want to check the contact details you have on file for all of your employees are correct. You will also want to check that all your employees have the appropriate visas or working rights, and that they have valid tax file numbers (TFNs).
- Conduct any staff reviews and performance management activities: A lot of the time, businesses use the end of the financial year as an opportunity to conduct staff reviews and other activities for performance management, which are likely to be carried out by your HR team. This may involve evaluating staff performance, setting new outcomes and performance-based expectations, and making a plan for training development activities as needed. Some staff members may be promoted, and put onto a new pay scale with additional benefits for the new financial year. Most employees will likely stay the same.
- Ensure your policies and procedures are up to date: The end of the financial year presents a great opportunity for you to run through your existing policies and procedures, and make sure they’re all up to date, before providing your employees with a refresher. If changes are needed, these should be made, prior to employees being issued with a new, up to date copy of them so that they can familiarise themselves with them, and ensure they are clear about what is expected of them.
- Facilitate employee satisfaction activities: Many businesses also use the end of the financial year as an opportunity to issue surveys or conduct interviews with their employees, so that they can assess employee satisfaction. Not only will this provide you with an idea of how happy your employees are at work, but it will also allow you to take on board any feedback received to help you refine your company’s goals and culture to better support employee satisfaction. Analysing employee turnover and engagement for the current financial year will also help with this.
- Plan for the next financial year: Finally, you’ll want to be thinking about your objectives and goals for the next financial year from a people and HR perspective. Think about things like: how did your business go this financial year from a HR point of view? How could this be improved for the next financial year? What kinds of changes need to be made to facilitate this? Based on this, you will be able to start developing and implementing your HR strategy for the next financial year, which will outline things like how you will handle recruitment, performance management, and other HR activities.
If you need to start preparing for the end of the financial year from a HR point of view, but are unsure of where to start, we can help. For more information, get in touch with us today at hello@mmchr.com.au or 07 4243 5977.