As an HR leader you have a responsibility to ensure that periodical HR activities are completed within their schedule. However, if you don’t have some kind of system in place that would have you and your HR team on the same page of upcoming activities and their deadlines you will end up having to send so many reminders to your team to complete these periodical critical activities and in many occasions ending up forgetting to send reminders and/or missing these deadlines.

My objective in this article is to introduce a simple system that would basically align all HR team members in understanding periodical HR activities and systemize their approach of completing these activities which with time will transform the process into a cultural habit more than it is an assignment.

There are two aspects related to this subject. One is related to the internal team of the HR Department and the other one related to the company-wide employees. I shall discuss each of these aspects separately in the below sections:

• Aligning the HR team: the objective over here is to align all HR team members in understanding the HR activities that are to be done on periodical basis and establish a mutual understanding of the deadlines for each of these activities. This will basically improve the efficiency of the performance of the HR team in completing these periodical activities and while implementing this system with time it will eventually become part of the culture of the team that doesn’t really require any kind of reminder from the HR team lead. Due to the nature of HR processes/activities, some of them are executed on monthly basis and the others are executed on a yearly basis. For simplicity, I will discuss both types separately below and provide examples in order to have a mutual understanding:
  • Monthly HR activities

On monthly basis certain HR processes/activities need to be executed and completed. These HR processes/activities will obviously be different from one company to the other depending on the size of the company, geography, scope of HR Department, etc. However, certain HR processes/activities will be common such as reviewing monthly attendance records, executing monthly payroll, submitting monthly HR report, etc.)

The HR team will basically need to discuss and agree on the list of HR processes and activities that need to be executed on monthly basis and then agree on the monthly deadline for each. The below calendar is an example to illustrate a sample outcome. Once the HR team has a similar HR Monthly calendar in place then everyone would be aware of their monthly assigned activities and their deadlines. These deadlines should be fixed only once and then they should be complied with on monthly basis every year.

• Yearly HR activities

On the other hand, a number of HR processes/activities will need to be executed and scheduled on a yearly basis such as Manpower Planning, Performance Management, Vacations Planning, etc. The below calendar provides an example for illustration.

Having such monthly and yearly HR calendar in place would also highly assist the HR Department in induction of new HR members as well as in the handover process of HR employees who are going on leave or departing from the company. I would also recommend to have these calendars to be part of the HR Policy and Procedure manuals as an appendix. I have observed a number of clients implementing such practice and it was very effective.

• Aligning company employees with the HR team: the objective over here is mainly to improve the communication process with employees and keeping them aware of the plan and schedule of HR’s processes which are related to the employees such as Performance Management, Public Holidays, Vacation Planning, etc. It is as such highly recommended to annually develop and publish an Annual HR Calendar across the company to reflect the HR’s plan and schedule. It is also recommended to continuously communicate the progress and status of these scheduled HR activities in the various communication channels in the company (e.g. newsletters, bulletin boards, email, etc.).

I hope that you have found this article and the insights provided to be relevant and beneficial. Please do share your thoughts and feedback on the subject as they are always welcome.