Keeping the Lights On While Shining a Light Ahead
Some companies have fared better than others this year. Essential businesses, paper product suppliers and package delivery services, have likely all felt the pinch of being overworked. Remember the grocery stores in March? They did not however, have the burden of temporarily closing, massively reducing staff, or scrambling to reconfigure how to keep the lights on amid COVID.
Regardless of the size of your company, significantly reducing your staff in response to the pandemic has taken a toll. Some employers found inventive ways to offer their services, but this still often meant keeping only a skeletal crew.
While it’s been tough all over, the unemployment crisis created challenges that no one saw coming: Historic unemployment numbers, massive fraud, inconsistent information, overwhelmed state offices, excess claim fees, and trouble with disbursements — to name a few. It is overwhelming and is difficult for companies and states to keep up with the demand.
Problems & Solutions
UI Rates
Many employers have been focused on creative solutions for their immediate needs. However, as we approach the final quarter of the year, it is imperative to assess your UI tax rate before December. We offer this service for free because it is so crucial to savings. If you are not at your lowest rate in your industry, and within each state you operate – 2021 could hit your company hard. Being over by even 1/10th of 1 % could cost hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars – depending on the size of your company.
Excess Claims
Some companies using vendors to help manage their unemployment, may find a gaping hole in their budget because of the excess claim fees. No one could have predicted the year that we’ve had. Nonetheless, excess claim fees are another unexpected and possibly significant expense at a time when budgets are already stressed too thin. We do not charge for excess claims, because we are not a processing fee-based service.
Responding Appropriately
With the avalanche of claims, some companies are responding to them indiscriminately. This could result in people getting unemployment who lost their job for a non-qualifying reason – such as walking off the job. It is easy for these claims to slip through among the COVID claims, and ultimately be awarded. It all comes out of the same trust fund though, and it all has to get repaid somehow. We handle responding to all claims. Our focus is on reducing losses, not just meeting filing deadlines. This saves you time and more money.
Report and Manage
This past year has proved that we can no longer accept unemployment costs as the cost of doing business. As we move forward, we need tools to better project or gain some control over unemployment costs. Our customized reports provide an assessment of our services by showing you how many claims you’ve won, the reasons for claims lost, and how much you could save at the best tax rate. It also gives you something tangible to reference when reviewing HR policies and budget projections.
Visit us here for a rate assessment and more information. Shining a light on lurking costs can help your business as we enter the next phase of economic recovery. Our service was designed to provide results – even in unprecedented times.
