HR Workforce Solutions
By Nonprofits, For Nonprofits
By offering access to an expert HR hotline, over 200 employee training courses, and a dedicated claims representative, UST helped its members uphold HR best practices, while remaining compliant with state laws. Last year, UST members saved more than $32 million in mitigated claims costs and won over 80% of their claims protests.
With a 96% recommendation rate, UST’s membership base and overall impact within the nonprofit sector continues to grow. Check out the full infographic for the full list of last year’s noteworthy accomplishments:
For a limited time, you can download the whitepaper for free and find out:
Learn the secrets of other nonprofit executives and HR staff who have reduced their human resource and unemployment claims costs. Download your complimentary copy of 5 Myths That Are Increasing Your Nonprofit’s HR Costs today.
By providing exclusive access to such cost saving resources, UST aims to educate 501(c)(3) organizations on the latest HR best practices and compliance laws—living up to its mission of “Saving money for nonprofits in order to advance their missions.”
Fill out a complimentary Savings Evaluation to find out if you can save with UST.
Q: Is there a reason to have a supervisor’s name in an offer letter? In other words, is an offer letter that only lists a new hire’s supervisor as a title acceptable?
A: There is no definite reason to have a supervisor’s name on an offer letter or any requirement to have the title on the document either.
The intent of the offer letter is to welcome the new hire and to ensure that the new hire has all of the information s/he will need regarding the terms and conditions of employment. If, in your environment, putting the supervisor’s name on the document does not make sense, then feel free to leave it off the document.
We do recommend, however, that you do include a contact person that the new employee can go to for questions about the position or for any assistance the new employee may need.
Question and Answer provided by ThinkHR. Learn more about how your nonprofit can gain access to their expert HR staff here.
But how do you find the right employee? Simple. Recruit a hiring team internally before recruiting any potential staff.
The hiring team you assemble should be your recruitment backbone—helping you create the hiring timeline, outline specific role responsibilities, and conduct interviews.
Here are 6 tips to keep in mind when creating and working with your recruitment team:
Having the support of a dedicated hiring team can help speed up the hiring process, while increasing efficiency. Knowing when and how to engage your hiring staff can help you identify the best possible candidate for any potential position—giving your nonprofit the edge it needs accomplish mission objectives.
Learn more about how to select and utilize your recruitment team here.
A: Unless your business handles public safety concerns, we would encourage you to very carefully consider implementing mandatory retirement age policies, and certainly NOT to do it on a case-by-case basis.
The reason is that on a federal level, company wide mandatory retirement age policies violate the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), except in limited circumstances. The ADEA, which applies to organizations with 20 or more employees, protects employees age 40 and older from discrimination based on their age. Prior to 1986 the age discrimination law did not protect employees over the age of 70 in the workplace, but due to the 1986 amendment to the Act, this age cap was removed. As a result, all employees over 40 years old generally are covered by the ADEA. Since this change, companies are no longer able to enforce a mandatory retirement age for all employees.
There is one exception under the ADEA (outside of bona fide reasons for retirement, such as public safety officers, etc). That exception is company executives in a bona fide executive or higher policy-making position. For example, federal law does allow mandatory retirement for a company CEO at age 65 or older under two conditions:
If the reason you are asking the question is because you are concerned with how you deal with the growing number of older workers and the potential for declining performance in old age, the government expects us not to assume that all employees of a certain age are unable to perform their jobs or will be less productive for the organization.
But if an older worker is not performing at the level of expectation, this is a performance issue that should be addressed in accordance with your company’s policies and practices as a performance issue, not an age issue. (And this should be done on a case-by-case basis).
Allow the employee the opportunity to improve through training and coaching; do not assume the older employee will not or cannot learn and adapt to change.
The way many employers are helping their older workers while making room for their younger employees is through the use of voluntary retirement programs. These programs offer all employees of a certain age within the organization a retirement package above and beyond other guaranteed retirement benefits. Voluntary retirement packages do not violate the ADEA because they provide an option (not a mandate) for the older worker to receive more (not fewer) benefits upon retirement than someone retiring or leaving the company at a younger age.
We would encourage you to work with your legal counsel to discuss other relevant regulations and requirements of voluntary retirement programs.
Question and Answer provided by ThinkHR. Learn more about how your nonprofit can gain access to their expert HR staff here.
mentation of a more civil society. Those elected for the honor “illustrates the power of people pushing society for equal access and opportunity…[as] recently it seems that the insistence for inclusion has need ratcheting up and sector leaders have responded.”
Everyone at UST wou
ld like to extend our heartfelt congratulations to those included. We’d also like to thank all of the organizations that we work with for continuing to fight the good fight and make a difference for those around them.
See the full list of innovators being recognized by this years’ Power & Influence Top 50 here.
Unfortunately, for many states, the realization came a little too late.
During the height of the Recession, almost 40 states borrowed a combined $50 billion from the Federal Unemployment Trust Administration (FUTA) to continue providing jobless benefits. This much debt required many states to make long-term changes to their unemployment systems by either charging penalties or fees to businesses or by cutting jobless benefits. Many made historic cuts to the number of weeks of aid available, but some—like New Jersey which racked up more than $1.5 billion in debt—took a long, hard look at the administration of their trust.
In New Jersey that long, hard look at the administration of their unemployment trust fund resulted in some spectacular results. Over the past four years New Jersey has identified more than 300,000 people who tried to wrongly collect benefits through identity theft, failure to report a new job, schemes, and honest mistakes. Also:
But what did New Jersey do that set them on the path to successfully rebuild their unemployment trust fund?
They updated their system.
Namely, they began using a strategy referred to as ‘identity proofing.’ With the help of LexisNexis, the state of New Jersey requires applicants to verify a wide range of personal information through a quiz on the state labor department’s website. The questions are specifically developed to be ones that the individual who owns an identity could accurately answer.
Then, using the billions of public records that LexisNexis collects, the answers—which range from what kind of car an applicant has, to who lives at their address—help weed out potential frauds.
Less than a year-and-a-half into the effort, more than $4.4 million in improper payments have already been stopped, and almost 650 instances of identity theft have been avoided.
Want to know how well your state is catching improper payments? The U.S. Department of Labor provides this state-by-state breakdown for 2013.
Read more about how New Jersey is fighting improper payments and unemployment fraud here.
A: In order to reduce the risk of being held personally liable under either a federal or state statute, it is important for HR processionals to:
In order to understand and identify potential risks, HR professionals should have a good grasp of applicable employment law, along with an understanding of their business and the ability to maintain an ethical approach. Additionally, it is critical that HR professionals feel comfortable pushing back on the company when appropriate and vocalizing when something is not right, either legally or from a company values or culture perspective.
Federal Liability
Some of the areas where an HR professional may have exposure to personal liability are:
State Liability
HR professionals may have exposure to liability under a number of state or common law statutes ranging from assault, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, ignored harassment or discrimination, and more.
It is not unusual for a disgruntled employee suing an employer to seek individual liability in order to increase their chances of a settlement. Most liability insurance policies don’t cover employment law violations so it is not unusual for companies to add additional employment practice liability insurance (EPLI) to address these situations. You should determine whether your employer has such a policy and if your position and self are protected under stated company plans.
The best way for HR professionals to avoid personal liability is to:
Question and Answer provided by ThinkHR. Learn more about how your nonprofit can gain access to their expert HR staff here.
Follow these 5 easy steps to create sustainable changes within your nonprofit:
Change is what keeps nonprofits moving forward. Taking the time to foster cooperation amongst your employees is the easiest way to create lasting change—which provides ongoing opportunity for organizational growth within the nonprofit sector.
Learn more about how to gain employee support for organizational change here.
UST maintains a secure site. This means that information we obtain from you in the process of enrolling is protected and cannot be viewed by others. Information about your agency is provided to our various service providers once you enroll in UST for the purpose of providing you with the best possible service. Your information will never be sold or rented to other entities that are not affiliated with UST. Agencies that are actively enrolled in UST are listed for review by other agencies, UST’s sponsors and potential participants, but no information specific to your agency can be reviewed by anyone not affiliated with UST and not otherwise engaged in providing services to you except as required by law or valid legal process.
Your use of this site and the provision of basic information constitute your consent for UST to use the information supplied.
UST may collect generic information about overall website traffic, and use other analytical information and tools to help us improve our website and provide the best possible information and service. As you browse UST’s website, cookies may also be placed on your computer so that we can better understand what information our visitors are most interested in, and to help direct you to other relevant information. These cookies do not collect personal information such as your name, email, postal address or phone number. To opt out of some of these cookies, click here. If you are a Twitter user, and prefer not to have Twitter ad content tailored to you, learn more here.
Further, our website may contain links to other sites. Anytime you connect to another website, their respective privacy policy will apply and UST is not responsible for the privacy practices of others.
This Privacy Policy and the Terms of Use for our site is subject to change.
UST maintains a secure site. This means that information we obtain from you in the process of enrolling is protected and cannot be viewed by others. Information about your agency is provided to our various service providers once you enroll in UST for the purpose of providing you with the best possible service. Your information will never be sold or rented to other entities that are not affiliated with UST. Agencies that are actively enrolled in UST are listed for review by other agencies, UST’s sponsors and potential participants, but no information specific to your agency can be reviewed by anyone not affiliated with UST and not otherwise engaged in providing services to you except as required by law or valid legal process.
Your use of this site and the provision of basic information constitute your consent for UST to use the information supplied.
UST may collect generic information about overall website traffic, and use other analytical information and tools to help us improve our website and provide the best possible information and service. As you browse UST’s website, cookies may also be placed on your computer so that we can better understand what information our visitors are most interested in, and to help direct you to other relevant information. These cookies do not collect personal information such as your name, email, postal address or phone number. To opt out of some of these cookies, click here. If you are a Twitter user, and prefer not to have Twitter ad content tailored to you, learn more here.
Further, our website may contain links to other sites. Anytime you connect to another website, their respective privacy policy will apply and UST is not responsible for the privacy practices of others.
This Privacy Policy and the Terms of Use for our site is subject to change.
But slow down just a minute. Are you sure your organization is ready to hire more employees?
Although only your organization can determine if you’re actually ready to hire new employees, Inc. recommends answering the following questions about your organization, where you want it to go, and what is happening now.
What kind of organizational structure do you want?
Do you want your organization to grow extensively? Are you pretty happy with the size it is now, but unable to meet the demands of your mission with your current staff, or are you hoping to grow organically whenever the need arises?
Will you be able to slow down growth if you need to?
Not all organizations have significant control over how much growth they will experience in any given time. For instance, if your organization helps provide disaster relief to a specific area and the area suddenly experiences a large-scale disaster, your response must be immediate and decisive. Or, if your organization helps animals and takes part in a multi-county animal seizure, you must be able to provide shelter and care for all of the animals involved for the foreseeable future.
But if your organization works to help a select group of impoverished students succeed, it’s reasonable to expect that there will not be an unmanageable influx of students to your program in any given year.
Do you really need help?
Do any of your employees have extra time throughout their week or month that can be used to address some of the needs that you’d like to hire new employees for? If so, can these employees be trained to perform some of the needed tasks?
While it might not fully address your needs, it would cut down on organizational waste and potentially allow for a part-time position to be created in lieu of the more expensive full-time position.
Are you fully prepared to recruit, hire, and train more employees?
Our ThinkHR resources and your UST Customer Service Representative can help you ensure your organization is best positioned to do all three without exposing you to excess liability in the future.
Not yet a member? Learn more about the UST program here.