It is common knowledge that unemployment insurance costs have been on the rise for years – often being in the top three employer tax costs.  Many employers spend a great deal of time managing the costs of unemployment once a claim has been filed with the state UI agency, without a thought to how their hiring practices and retention efforts can have a positive effect on their UI costs.  Ensuring that you hire strong employees and then treat them well will have a much more dramatic effect on your UI costs than even the most effective claims management program.

Be sure that your hiring practices both get you the best candidates and new employees while also providing supporting evidence in case a bad hire get’s through the system.  Strong documentation of skills, abilities, experience, etc. can assist you with fighting the UI claim of a bad hire, so be certain that your application and screening processes are in order.

Once an employee is hired and begins work, the focus should turn to training, productivity and other work related documentation.  Ensure new employees are well trained and are productive while providing positive and negative feedback where necessary – this is effective employee coaching and is critical to employee retention.  When an employee “stumbles” in their career with your organization, be certain that your documentation of these incidents is consistent and sufficient to defend you from an unemployment claim should the worst happen and a separation occurs.

With all of this being said, don’t forget to build a strong UI claims management program, but be certain that you don’t forget to do the right things during the claimant’s time with you as an employee – this will be a far more successful cost management strategy in the long run.