The last meeting of the year is approaching. What will you cover to end the year on a positive note, yet not let any challenges slip?

In this guide, you’ll learn all you need to host a successful end of the year meeting.

Note: The focus will be on one-on-one meetings, but we’ll also include some inspiration for team meetings. After reading this article, you’ll feel more confident leading a year-end one-on-one meeting and get ideas for a festive finale to your all-team meeting.

What is an end of the year meeting?

An end-of-the-year meeting is a gathering, usually led by organizational leaders or department heads, which takes place at the close of the business year. The purpose of this meeting is to review the year’s accomplishments, challenges, and lessons learned.

It’s also a time to:

• Acknowledge staff contributions.
• Celebrate successes.
• Discuss goals, expectations, and strategies for the upcoming year.

An end of the year meeting is an opportunity for a manager and their direct report to reflect on what went well and what they can improve.

In today’s fast-paced world, we rarely pause to assess our progress. Yet that’s crucial for lasting success!

Even though constructive criticism is vital, it’s equally important to cherish what’s going well. When we appreciate what’s working, we invite more of it.

Plus, employees who feel valued and acknowledged for their efforts are more likely to stay within the organization – so showing appreciation positively affects finances, too!

Note that the end of the year meeting is different from a performance review meeting. This meeting has more of an informal tone and is meant to be an open and honest discussion of more of a free-flowing character. Rather than being about performance, it’s about people: it aims to strengthen the relationship between the employee and their direct report.

Tip: Send a meeting agenda before the meeting with the questions you’ll cover. This will help calm nerves and get the most out of the meeting: you can expect your employees to come prepared.

What is the purpose of an end of the year meeting?

Reflect on the past year

What went well? What can be improved?

The end of year meeting is an opportunity for the employee to express themselves outside of the rather limiting “scale of 1-10” in performance appraisals. It leaves room for the employee to express themselves in more subjective terms and share their sentiment about their development, the team, and company culture.

Tip: You can look at our development conversation questions as an inspiration for the meeting. These can be used in development conversations, where employees can share their aspirations with their managers.

The end of year meeting is a lighter version of a development conversation, which is not intended to cover all the questions.

Discuss growth and development goals

What is the employee most excited about when it comes to career growth and development?

Are there any specific skills they’re looking forward to developing? How can you, as the team leader or manager, support them in developing these skills? (Naturally, this needs to be assessed in accordance with the requirements of their current role.)

If there’s a lack of compatibility between the employee’s desires and what’s needed for the role, it might be a good idea to consider alternate positions. You also want to cover development goals more precisely. Development goals usually focus on building specific competencies. Ideally, they should motivate your employees to do a better job.

Recognizing achievements

Recognition is one of the most important factors for employee motivation and satisfaction.

Praise your employees for what they did well. Also, remember that everyone gets motivated by different things!

Bonus points for knowing your employees enough to understand what kind of recognition will motivate them. Some people thrive when their intellectual skills are valued, and others when appreciated for their social or collaborative skills.

Discussing challenges

What obstacles did the employee face during the year, and why? What can you do to prevent these issues from repeating themselves next year?

Plan for the upcoming year

Reflect with your employee: in a year from now, what would you like to look back to?

What achievements do you want to have on your list?

What skills do you want to acquire by the end of the next year? Are you looking to get promoted to a different role?

Tip: Start where your employee wants to be a year from now and define the steps needed to arrive there in a development plan.

The steps should align with the development goals but must be performance-related and time-bound.

Top best practices for end-of-year staff meetings

Discuss lessons learned throughout the year

• What were the takeaways from the past year?
• Does your employee need support with learning a new skill, tech, or something else to avoid running into the same issues?
• Or do you need to recruit additional resources?

The more your employees get into the habit of reflecting on lessons, the faster they will integrate them and avoid repeating the same mistakes.

Discuss goals for the upcoming year

• This goes for both employee and team levels.
• What is your employee most excited about achieving in the year ahead?
• Do they have a specific role in mind? Or maybe leadership or specialist training?

Also, invite them to reflect on their role within the team. Explore possibilities to move in their desired direction instantly.

For example, if they have their eyes on a team lead position, can they start by mentoring a more junior colleague now? Or be involved in the onboarding of new hires?

Align with the company strategy

• Where are you headed as a business?
• Do the individual goals of your employees contribute to getting there?
• If there’s a lack of alignment, explore how to find a compromise.

Allocate time for open discussion or feedback

The meeting should have a positive tone to motivate employees for the new year. That said, the meeting should clear any misunderstandings or lingering conflicts.

Activities to include in a team-level end of year meeting to make it more engaging and meaningful

After a year of hard work, it will feel good to crown the last team meeting of the year with some lighthearted activities.

Here are some fun and engaging ideas to incorporate into your end of year meeting:

1. Wall of gratitude: Let everyone share one thing they appreciate with each employee! Optional: Write it down, and let each employee receive positive comments from their colleagues. This can be done beforehand, and the gratitude cards are delivered during the end-of-year meeting. If you think your team would feel comfortable, have everyone share their positive feedback during the meeting. You can also use software like Kudo and create a Kudo board for each employee to keep!
2. Brainstorming session for the upcoming year: Let the creativity flow! Ideally, you divide your team members into smaller groups that can then come together and share their findings. Although brainstorming may be associated with no boundaries, mentioning any limitations, e.g., budget and alignment with company values and regulations may be a good idea. That way, you make the best use of the creative energy.
3. A fun, informal celebration to close the year: If you have a remote team, you can organize a virtual happy hour. Send everyone a takeaway food (and drink) gift card if your budget allows. That way, everyone can select food and drinks that suit their dietary preferences, and you can share a virtual holiday dinner.
4. Company retreat: If you have a budget to spend and potentially fly in remote employees, ending the year with a retreat can be an unforgettable experience. It will help your employees connect and reinforce the team spirit, which can be extra valuable if your team members have never met in person. It requires much more planning and logistics (and finances) than the other options, but the rewards will match!
5. A fun quiz to get to know your colleagues better: The rules are simple: everyone takes turns sharing two truths and a lie about themselves, and let the others guess which one is the lie.
6. Virtual scavenger hunts: These can bring excitement, laughter, and interesting conversations. Set a deadline and prompt each person to collect odd stuff. Consider adding a seasonal touch by including an ugly Christmas decoration or a holiday food item. Give prizes to the ones who gathered the most things within the timeline, and have bonus prizes for creativity.
7. Virtual escape room: This is a fun way to get people to think, problem-solve, and collaborate! Divide your employees into teams and let them go through virtual escape rooms. Plenty of software and apps have pre-made rooms with different themes and difficulty levels.

How to end a meeting on a positive note?

The last impression is often what lingers. That means, even if you share nine positive things with your employees but finish with something negative, they’ll leave the meeting with a slightly bad taste.

Luckily, this can be avoided when you know how to close the meeting positively!

Here are some examples for your end of year team meeting:

1. Review action items for each person and leave room for questions. No one likes to leave a meeting feeling more confused than before the meeting. However, there’s a sense of completion and fulfillment when you leave the meeting with clarity on how to move forward as a team, and everyone knows what to do next
2. Ask a fun question and take turns in replying. “What will you do for the holidays?” is a great one You can also choose something smaller, like “what was an unexpected moment that made you laugh last week?”
3. Do a short breathing exercise. If you’re in an intensive period, for example, a launch or sales campaign, a few minutes to release stress and calm your nerves can make a big difference in your overall mood and well-being
4. Highlight the positive achievements. Remind your employees how far you’ve come since a couple of weeks or months ago. Thank everyone for their hard work and contributions throughout the year, and encourage them to rest and go offline during their time off

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