As an employer, you can control your unemployment insurance (UI) costs in a variety of ways, including reducing the turnover in your company. With less turnover, you have fewer unemployment claims to pay which can lower your UI payments overall.

Reducing turnover starts during the hiring process. Effective recruiting helps reduce UI costs by ensuring the right candidate is hired. When you have the right person in the right position, you will not need to terminate people as often.

Follow these tips to recruit the right people and reduce your turnover.

Write Clear and Effective Job Descriptions

Job descriptions should help you focus on what traits and skills this new employee needs. It helps you outline the responsibilities for the role and lets applicants better judge if they are a good fit. Your job description should include requirements like education, experience, and skills. It should also outline the KSAs (Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities) job applicants need to succeed in the role. When hiring, always refer to your job description and assess if the candidates you are considering fit the description well.

Create KSA Requirements

By understanding the KSAs needed for the role, you can better focus your entire job search, honing in on the perfect candidate. Let the KSAs guide your job description, what questions you ask at the interview, and other hiring decisions to help land the employee you need.

Conduct Peer Interviews

While it is important that leadership meets with potential new employees, their future co-workers should also get a chance to assess their skills. Allow your current employees to meet with and interview the potential candidates to get a better perspective on if the person will fit in well with your team. Current employees who have to work directly with the new employee might even hold them to higher standards than the leadership because their success could depend on the candidate and their ability to do a good job.

Run Job Simulations

Job simulations ask candidates to complete tasks they would perform if hired. Simulations allow you to clearly assess the candidate’s skills and lets the candidate understand if they would enjoy the position. You can create simulations involving other employees, such as those to test how they would respond in certain situations or have them write up how they would go about specific tasks.

Find a Cultural Fit

Companies often hired based on skills alone without assessing if the candidate fits in with their organization’s culture. Hiring a candidate that shares the same values as your company and gets along with your team may lead to long-term hires and happier employees. To learn more about how the candidate would fit in, check their references, asking about past behaviors and characteristics.

Ask the Right Questions

Carefully consider what questions to ask in your applications and interviews. They should address KSAs and work requirements, like travel time, which shifts they will work, the duties they are expected to perform, and what wages they expect to be paid. Asking the right questions helps you ensure that you and the candidate are on the same page, avoiding any unhappy surprises if they are hired.

Once you have these tips in place, you can explore more ways to improve your recruitment process. An effective recruitment process helps you make a choice that makes you happy—and more importantly, helps the candidate be happy with their position, salary and duties. Once you begin recruiting the right employees, you’ll find that your UI costs start to drop.

For more information or ideas on what you could do reduce turnover or to schedule a demo of our software/services, visit Unemployment Tracker online at unemploymenttracker.com or sign up for our blog.