In reading the news around the United States these days, one would assume that the economy is in full recovery and unemployment numbers are down – so employers should be seeing significant reductions in their unemployment costs – you would think, right?  Wrong, for many employers, this is not the case – in fact, their unemployment costs are staying the same or even rising each year.  What could possibly be the cause of this rise?  The answer is simple – these employers are not effectively managing their unemployment insurance (UI) costs.  The following are some keys to establishing an effective UI cost management program – but this is by no means an all-inclusive list:

1. Get to know how unemployment operates in your state – many employers “don’t know what they don’t know” when it comes to managing unemployment costs in their state(s).  Without that knowledge, an employer will flounder when interacting with their state UI Agency and lose claims they should not lose – increasing their costs.   Get to know the laws in your state(s) and put processes and policies into place that enhance your ability to win protests and manage costs – if you don’t know what to do – get help from professionals like Unemployment Tracker (yes we can help in this area too.  Our UI knowledge is extensive – including how to establish and maintain a UI Cost Management program).
2. Audit your policies and employee handbook – if your handbook is not written in a way that follows UI and employment laws – it is just going to hinder your ability to win UI protests.  For example, your attendance policy can do some major damage to your ability to win attendance related termination protests unless it is written correctly.  As another example, your progressive discipline (or corrective action) policy can absolutely kill you when it comes to protesting claims – if it is not engineered properly (and followed to the letter consistently).  Get a professional to help you with this as there are a number of laws involved.
3. Track your claims, protests, taxes, and credits/charges with a database program.  If you are managing over 50 claims a year and doing it by hand or with a spreadsheet, you are likely missing opportunities to save because you are missing something claim related.  This is not meant as a criticism of your ability – it is a fact.  There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to UI claims, protests, and costs – these are hard to manage without a good way to track it all in one easy to use database (reminders, flags for errors, reports to show results, etc. are keys to managing and reducing your UI costs).  Additionally, using a database will actually reduce the amount of time you need to devote to the UI management process.  Unemployment Tracker is the best Cost Management software on the market so take time to get to know us.
4. Audit your results – often overlooked, auditing your results and using them to improve your processes.  If you keep losing protests and it appears that it is because of a policy or process, then change it (improve it) so that you can start winning.  Winning and catching errors is the key to reducing your UI costs.

These are just some of the key areas in which you can control and eventually reduce your UI costs – take the time to establish a strong and effective UI Cost Management Program and it will pay dividends for years to come!