9 TIPS FOR MANAGING YOUR UI COSTS

Are you getting frustrated trying to lower your Unemployment Insurance costs?  Managing this process can be a bit like trying to hold sand in your hands without losing any grains through your fingers.  There is a lot to track and so much to follow up on.  The important thing to remember is that UI taxes are entirely controllable and anything you save goes straight to your bottom line.  Here are a few tips and tricks of the trade to make that job a bit easier.

1. Become familiar with the non-charging provisions of the state unemployment insurance law in your state so that you can quickly and effectively contest improper claims lodged against your UI account.

2. Overcharges to your account are quite common – the national average for overcharges/errors to your account is more than 13 percent, so it is important to keep track of the UI charge statements that come in so that you can locate errors or overcharges and effectively contest them.

3. Review your UI tax rate notice to ensure that the numbers used to calculate your rate are correct – this is also another common cause of employers overpaying their UI taxes.

4. Ensure that you properly document employee related disciplinary or training issues so that defending your employment decisions is easier and protesting unemployment claims based on those employment decisions is more effective – you will win more protests.

5. Don’t forget to ensure your front-line management staff understands your policies and how to apply them to your employees.  The greatest policies and processes in the world are of little help if your managers don’t know how to properly use them.

6. Conduct exit interviews wherever possible – it is nice to have a statement about why an employee quit when they file for unemployment stating they were laid off.

7. Make good hiring decisions and take the time to properly train your new employees – State Unemployment Agencies generally do not disqualify claimants from receiving benefits whose employment is terminated for poor job performance.

8. Take the time to protest improper unemployment claims.  If you do not protest these claims, you will never win any of them and your UI tax rate will climb.

9. Develop and provide a thorough and complete employee handbook, job description and other standards/expectations of employment.  Be sure to have the employee sign for these employment documents.

These are just a few tips to help you along your way to more effectively managing your UI costs. For a more comprehensive list of ways to save and to learn the important steps in winning UI protests and controlling your UI costs – visit us on the web at www.unemploymenttracker.com.