November ’18 HR To Do List

Before you get too involved in your lists for gift-giving, parties, and shopping, don’t neglect your HR to do list for the month of November!

• Open enrollment for Obamacare health plans is November 1 through December 15 for plans effective during 2019. You may not offer health plans to your employees, or you may have group plans available to them. Either way, you can expect some questions about open enrollment since it’s in the news these days…on the radio, on TV, on the internet. Here’s a good place to start.
• Daylight Savings ends at 2am on Sunday, November 4th. Fall behind and get an extra hour of sleep!
• Don’t forget: employees have the right to take up to two hours off (with pay!) for voting in elections! You may require two days of notice from an employee if they are planning to take time off to vote. Encourage employees to vote – but don’t get political yourself! You can call the Secretary of State’s Voter Hotline at 888-345-VOTE for more information
• Prepare or revisit your winter weather policies. When is it OK for employees to stay home due to weather? Are they paid for those days? Is there a time when you will close the office itself? Document your emergency plans and be sure your employees are aware of them.
• Speaking of emergency plans, do you have enough emergency supplies to last everyone in your office for 72 hours?
• This is a great time to choose a local charity to support during the Holidays.
• Hopefully you’ve already published your company holidays during November (usually Thanksgiving and the following day) and December, but if you haven’t, do it now!
• Start planning for year end:
  • plan your schedule for distributing information in December on renewing FSA plans for 2019
  • plan for when you will send out information to 401(k) participants with information about adjusting contributions for 2019
  • review payroll records and make any needed adjustments ahead of time – have you entered every manual check? Have you (or your payroll provider) paid all your quarterly taxes? Submitted quarterly forms to the state?
  • review accounting records to be sure all vendors who should have a 1099 at the end of the year are flagged correctly
• Start planning for your Holiday party! Great venues book up quickly, so if you’re having a party off-site, be sure to book your venue first, then publish the date ASAP. Calendars book up fast for employees during the Holidays too, and you want to be sure they save the date! Keep an eye out for our annual blog post about holiday parties, too!

Planning ahead is key to success, especially in the busy months ahead of us. Have a great month!