Everyone knows that employees are your most valuable asset. Your relationships with them—both individually and as a working group—determine the productivity and success of your agency.

But many nonprofits put relationships with employees at a lower level of importance than relationships with donors and other funding sources. Ultimately this common mistake undermines the entire organization and detracts from your mission because it creates a counterproductive work environment.

To begin fixing these botched relationships, and celebrating your employees for who they are and what they do, we’ve put together the top 3 things NOT TO DO.

1. Playing favorites: We all know you have favorite employees. Whether they’re your top performers, best friends, or just people you really like for the job, don’t treat them any differently than you treat the rest of your employees.

Better yet, treat the rest of your employees the same way you treat your favorites.

2. Not giving employees a forum for voicing suggestions: If you want employees to know that they’re valued members of your organization encourage them to make suggestions to improve your operations or the way that their job is handled.

More importantly, take the time to recognize and implement the best suggestions. This will motivate employees to improve working processes and implement new activities.

3. Lack of communication with employees: Open and easy communication helps build the strongest relationships within your agency.

However you accomplish it, make sure that you’re present and easy to get in touch with when employees want, or need, to talk.

Connect with us on Facebook, on Twitter @USTTrust, or on LinkedIn and tell us what other things you would add to the list.

In late March, New Mexico’s Gov. Susana Martinez reactivated a long-dormant council in hopes of fixing the state’s rapidly shrinking unemployment insurance (UI) trust fund. Since 2009, the fund has dropped from more than $500 million to $60.6 million.

Like many states desperately trying to save their funds from insolvency, legislators in New Mexico passed a bill last year that would have slashed unemployment benefits and hiked the premiums businesses still in the tax-rated state system would have to pay. Martinez, however, eliminated the higher premiums and signed a new bill this year that approved lower rates through 2013.

Senator Gerald Ortiz y Pino (D- Albuquerque) is warning, though, that the state will soon have to borrow from the federal government at a high interest rate because employers only paid $197.8 million into the fund last year. And with more than 40,000 employers drawing from the fund, the remaining $60 million won’t go far.

For nonprofit agencies still in the state system, there are other options, such as leaving the state to join a Trust, like the Unemployment Services Trust (UST), that can help save more money and gain greater predictive control over yearly budgeting.

In fact, New Mexico nonprofits that leave the state system and join UST save an average of $3,483 a year.

To learn more about your opt out alternatives, visit https://www.chooseust.org/501c3-unemployment-alternatives/ or sign up for the an upcoming Exclusive Nonprofit Savings webinar.

Read the full Albuquerque Journal article here.

Made available to us by the National Council of Nonprofits (as featured in their March 11 issue of Nonprofit Advocacy Matters), the following infographic helps illustrate the true human impact of the sequestration.

Sequestration infographic

According to Ragan’s HR Communication News there are five questions that every employee wants—and needs—to have answered to be feel confident and successful in their position within your nonprofit organization.

For you, answering these questions is critical to creating an invested workforce that sparks the creativity and drive that your mission thrives on. Answering the questions also gives employees a sense of who they are and where they fit in your agency, which leads to more productive, and innovative, workdays.

1. What is expected of me? This question may seem obvious, but if you don’t have a clearly developed job description that outlines how each position fits into the overall organizational goals, and how the position is critical to reaching your mission goals, employees may feel that they’re just floating in the void. By clearly laying how a position fits into your nonprofit goals, you allow your employees to actively engage in making your nonprofit a successful place to work. If you haven’t yet, read this to learn more about developing strong employee objectives.
2. How am I doing? Don’t structure your nonprofit so that employees are only getting feedback on the things they do wrong—it’s disheartening and keeps people from extending themselves. Make sure that managers are regularly scheduling meetings with the employees they oversee to give regular feedback on how the employee is doing. And ensure that when employees do something awesome they hear about it! Employees want to have regular feedback (both good and bad) and if they don’t get it from you, they may find another nonprofit that does offer them the opportunity for growth.
3. Where do I stand? Schedule a formal evaluation of each of your employees every year. An expansion of question 2, this allows you to discuss their accomplishments, opportunities for further growth and improvement, and the challenges that they’ve dealt with. This annual assessment meeting also allows you and your employees to review what is expected of each of them and how this has changed in the past year.
4. How can I improve? As we’ve said before, you must give employees the opportunities to gain more professional skills and understanding if you want them to stay with your nonprofit for the long haul. It’s vital to keeping employees happy. But, offering opportunities for improvement also allows you to further the mission of your nonprofit. By strengthening every member on your team, you become more able to meet new situations head on.
5. How can I grow and challenge myself? A more focused version of question 4, this question allows you to re-recruit employees by reminding each other why the fit works. Find out where they want to go in their career and determine how this fits in with your organizational assessment of their abilities. Whether this means you add to an employee’s daily duties, you move them up in the organization, or whatever else works for you, re-recruiting employees challenges both you and them to create a high-performance, high-quality workplace that is even more focused on your mission.

Answering these questions is only part of a strong employee retention policy though. What other steps do you take to keep employees engaged and excited about your nonprofit?

Read the original Ragan article here.

Federally mandated changes to the state-run unemployment system will be rolling into effect over the next 6 months as the October 2013 deadline looms, forcing employers to comply with stricter administration standards or face high penalties. UST helps member nonprofits comply to avoid costly errors.

– Interview Available-

Santa Barbara, CA (April 18, 2013) – In an effort to reduce potential penalties for its nonprofit employer members, the Unemployment Services Trust (UST) has launched several new efforts and technological tools to help address what is being called the federal “UI Integrity mandate.”

Passed as a part of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Extension Act of 2011, the Unemployment Insurance (UI) Integrity mandate requires all employers to provide a complete and timely response to the state’s first request for information about an unemployment claim. Designed to address one of the biggest weaknesses of Unemployment Insurance (UI) funds nationwide—the persistence of unemployment benefits paid in error, which are have cost $10.3 billion in the last year—the UI Integrity Act requires full compliance from all states no later than October 21, 2013. As of today, 5 states (NE, OK, MS, IL, and WV) have enacted legislation with 6 additional states (CA, UT, NM, SD, MN, and NC) passing legislation to be enacted in the coming months. 12 states (WA, OR, ID, MT, WY, CO, AZ, ND, IA, LA, KY, and VA) have pending legislation. The remaining states have yet to take any action to meet the federal deadline.

To ensure that the reform yields the necessary savings, there will be penalties on employers for non-compliance. Any employer that fails to provide a complete and timely response to a claim loses any hope of relief from charges attributable to that claim—even if the employer ultimately wins the claim.

Further, if the state identifies a pattern of failure to provide complete and timely responses, negligent organizations and their claims administrator are at risk of permanently losing valuable protest rights and/or facing monetary penalties.

To address these new liabilities, the Unemployment Services Trust (UST), which helps more than 2,000 nonprofit employers nationwide to reduce the cost of unemployment claims, is conducting regional seminars and state-specific webinars for its members. Through its partnership with Equifax Workforce Solutions (WS), UST’s educational opportunities will allow its nonprofit members to examine how changes to the national UI integrity laws will affect them and to gather helpful tips to improve overall win ratios when protesting improper claims. On average, this type of diligence reduces an employer’s claims costs by 15% each year.

In addition to the seminars and webinars, UST’s nonprofit members now have access to a unique unemployment claim dashboard called CaseBuilder, which was launched by WS earlier this year. “This online dashboard will allow organizations to gather and submit documents and details in a fast, secure environment for all stages of the unemployment process,” reports Workforce Solutions. Current members who utilize CaseBuilder have significantly increased their ability to comply with state requests in a timely manner—which will be extremely pertinent as states begin to integrate UI Integrity legislation into their practices.

Finally, members of UST are already reaping the benefits of “SIDES,” the State Information Data Exchange System that 24 states have implemented, with more scheduled throughout 2013. SIDES is a secure, paperless system which allows UST members and their claims administrator WS to better provide necessary details and documentation at the time of an initial claim filing. Here is how it is helping UST member organizations:

• It’s electronic, so it’s more secure than paper documents.
• Electronic delivery of claims from the state will increase the amount of time employers have to respond to requests for separation information.
• SIDES was specifically designed to require details as a part of the response. Providing the details up front will save time by reducing additional requests for information.

“All employers will be on the hook to respond to every unemployment claim, every time,” says Donna Groh, Executive Director of UST. “We’re trying to establish best practices that ensure our member nonprofits are ahead of the curve—so they can avoid penalties down the road.”

About UST: Founded by nonprofits, for nonprofits, UST is the largest unemployment trust in the nation, providing 501(c)(3) organizations with a safe, cost-effective alternative to paying state unemployment taxes. Equifax Workforce Solutions (WS) is UST’s partner to provide members with claim administration, audits of state charges, and hearing representation if a member’s claims protest goes to court. They also provide educational seminars and training materials to UST member agencies throughout the year. Visit www.ChooseUST.org to learn more.

For the 59^th month in a row, the Georgia Department of Labor has announced that the unemployment rate, at 9.3 percent, remains higher than the national average. Only 7 states, including Washington D.C., have a higher unemployment rate.

For nonprofits, this isn’t the worst of the news.

After falling below 9 percent in April for the first time in more than 3 years, the rate has begun a steady climb upward again, negatively affecting nonprofit employers throughout Georgia by simultaneously increasing cost and need. Compounded by the state’s depleted unemployment insurance trust fund and an outstanding loan balance of more than $742 million that is still owed to the federal government, nonprofits are facing a higher possibility increased unemployment taxes in 2013.

Because Georgia quickly depleted its unemployment insurance (UI) trust fund, the struggle to provide benefits has hurt employers and jobless workers as the state has made large cuts to benefits and steeply increased the overall unemployment costs paid by employers.

Further adding to the coming financial strain, the interest on the federal unemployment trust fund loan cannot be paid from the unemployment tax fund and must instead be paid from other state revenues, causing further financial stress for legislators.

To pay it, the Georgia legislature passed SB 347 earlier this year, which, in addition to cutting jobless benefits and increasing unemployment benefits paid out by employers, includes provisions to:

• Assess employers an unemployment insurance tax on the first $9,500 of each employee’s wages, up from the current $8,500, beginning January 1, 2013.
• Assess employers a solvency tax, called the Statewide Reserve Ratio surcharge, whenever the balance in the state’s unemployment fund falls below a specified level.
• Reduce the number of weeks jobless workers can collect unemployment benefits from 26 to a period ranging from 14-20 weeks depending on how high the statewide unemployment rate is.

While this legislation makes Georgia one of 11 states that have cut jobless benefits in the past year by reducing the duration and level of payouts and by restricting eligibility, the legislation may ultimately harm nonprofits specifically as it forces unemployed workers to turn to nonprofits for aid, while also increasing the amount that agencies must set aside to pay for unemployment costs of their own.

For nonprofit organizations still in the state tax system, there are other options available though. Since 1972 nonprofit employers have had the exclusive ability to opt out of the state system and reimburse directly the dollar-for-dollar costs of only their own unemployment costs.

By safely leaving the state’s pooled liability system and paying only for their own unemployment costs, many nonprofits- particularly those with 10 or more employees- can save up to 50 percent off of their UI taxes and gain greater predictive control over yearly budgeting. In fact, Georgia nonprofits that leave the state system and join UST save an average of $14,321 a year.

Learn more about your nonprofits money saving alternatives, or sign up for an upcoming webinar to learn how UST can help your nonprofit reduce SUI costs.

Read the original Savannah Morning News article.

When the federal government established the Unemployment Insurance (UI) system after the Great Depression, it was designed to support workers who, “through no fault of their own” lost their jobs. Established to ensure that the economy could recover in the face of massive job losses, the state UI system is supposed to be a safety net.

The system is far from perfect though.

For instance, the system is intrinsically flawed for many nonprofit employers who face little to no job-turnover and who remain a part of their state system. Featured in a recent report, the North Carolina UI system has provided one of the strongest examples of why eligible 501(c)(3)’s should consider opting out of their state UI system, as allowed by federal law.

After borrowing more than $2.4 billion from the federal government to meet their UI responsibilities after their UI Trust Fund became insolvent during the Great Recession, North Carolina has begun leveraging their high interest payments on state UI participants.

Like many states which were unable to meet their UI obligations, the burden of reimbursing the federal government for the full loans falls on all employers within the state, whether or not any of their former employees are currently collecting unemployment benefits.

No state reached insolvency overnight though.

Long before the recent recession, states resisted “indexing” or raising their unemployment taxes from year to year. Things were good, the economy was stable — why should they make adjustments? But while employers enjoyed low taxes, in the long run they were being set up for a much bigger fall in the future. And that’s when the Great Recession hit. Not only had states failed to maintain an adequate UI cushion, employers would be double-hit by the recession in having to lay off workers to cut costs, and then pay higher unemployment taxes as a result. According to a 2010 Government Accountability Office report, “Long-standing UI tax policies and practices in many states over 3 decades have eroded trust fund reserves, leaving states in a weak position prior to the recent recession.” Not that states weren’t warned. Even in North Carolina, the Budget and Tax Center reports that it “conducted a thorough analysis of the unemployment insurance system in March 2007, before the start of the Great Recession, warning of the long-term unsustainability of the system as implemented and suggesting reforms.”

More than ever, systems today must be built that can better weather economic downturns and large, prolonged layoffs. Adequate funding levels must be re-attained so that states rely less on the federal government for funding support to meet benefit payments. A system must also be built which maintains its ability to support the economy with wage-replacement levels that are adequate in supporting workers seeking work.

While innovative programs must continue to be introduced to help place jobseekers in new positions, an overhaul of many state UI systems would better support nonprofit employers who remain in their state tax-rated UI system whether they are too small to opt out, or if they feel safer in the state system.

However, because 501(c)(3)s have the exclusive right to opt out of their state UI system in favor of becoming a reimbursing employer that pays directly for former employees’ UI costs, many already experience a greater savings because they aren’t paying for the state’s interest on federal loans, or subsidizing larger employers’ UI costs.