HR Workforce Solutions
By Nonprofits, For Nonprofits
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For most 501(c)(3) organizations with 10 or more employees, November is the month to exercise their state unemployment tax exemption for an effective date of January 1, 2017.
What does that mean? Well, by federal law, 501(c)(3)s are allowed to opt-out of paying taxes into their state unemployment tax fund, and instead only reimburse the state if and when they have an actual unemployment claim, dollar-for-dollar.
It can be a savings opportunity for many nonprofits who have lower claims than what they pay in state unemployment taxes—which are often driven up by for-profits and other companies that go out of business, as well as state fund deficits and improper payments made in error.
The Unemployment Services Trust (UST) performed more than 400 free unemployment tax savings evaluations for nonprofits with 10 or more employees in 2015, finding a total of $6,022,190 in potential unemployment tax savings if they were to exercise their exemption and join the UST program instead.
But time is running out to benchmark your nonprofit’s unemployment costs and opt out of the state unemployment tax system. Most states have a December 1st opt-out deadline, so UST needs all unemployment cost analysis forms submitted before Nov 15th at the latest in order to meet the state deadline.
You can view your state’s unemployment tax exemption deadline here: www.chooseust.org/state-unemployment-tax-opt-out-deadlines-for-nonprofits
Unfortunately, if a nonprofit misses the state deadline, they have to wait until the following year to exercise their exemption and join the Unemployment Services Trust. So if you or a nonprofit you know has not exercised their exemption, be sure to share the free cost analysis form before the Nov 15th deadline: www.chooseust.org/request-a-savings-quote
Through the Noise interviewed Elizabeth Scott, CEO of Brighter Strategies, to help nonprofit employers improve their overall effectiveness by building their internal capacity. Listen below or check out the full library of podcasts.
Podcast Description: This podcast emphasizes the importance of harnessing the emotional intelligence of staff members so that organization can do the most with what they have. Dr. Elizabeth Scott aims to provide thought leadership and high value organizational development consulting in an effort to strengthen the nonprofit sector.
Brighter Strategies is a non-profit consulting firm that works with non-profit organizations as a “thought partner” to help build capacity and make the most of their greatest asset—their human capital. To learn more about Brighter Strategies, visit their website at www.brighterstrategies.com.
To stay up-to-date on the latest best practice tips and cost-saving ideas just for nonprofits, sign up for UST’s monthly eNews: https://www.chooseust.org/enews
Total non-farm payrolls increased by 156,000 in September which was lower than the expected 176,000. So far this year, job growth has averaged 178,000 per month, compared with an average of 229,000 per month in 2015. The unemployment rate ricked slightly upwards to 5.0 percent and the number of unemployed, at 7.9 million, changed little. Both measures have shown little movement since August of last year.
Job gains occurred in professional and business services with 67,000 new positions while health care added 33,000 jobs and food and bar services added 30,000. Retail trade continued to trend up over the month with an addition of 22,000 jobs.
Mining employment was unchanged in September and employment in other major industries, including construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade, transportation and warehousing, information, financial activities, and government, showed little change over the month.
The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) accounted for 24.9 percent of the unemployed population and remained unchanged at 2.0 million. Both the labor force participation rate, at 62.9 percent, and the employment population ratio, at 59.8 percent, were unchanged in September.
Average hourly earnings for all private non-farm employees rose by 6 cents to $25.79. Over the year, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.6 percent.
The Federal Reserve is looking to get rates back to normal and there is implication that could happen in December so this report comes at a critical time. With the presidential election, however, there may be further postponement.
UST R ewards 431 Members for Successfully Lowering Their Anticipated Unemployment Claims within the Last Year.
Santa Barbara, CA (October 4, 2016) – In an era when nonprofits are struggling to stretch their budgets, the Unemployment Services Trust (UST) today announced it is pleased to disperse $6,664,166 to 431 of its program participants. The agencies receiving the funds have demonstrated prudent management of their unemployment costs resulting in a return of funds back to the organizations. This brings participant savings over the past year to a whopping $34,980,275.96 in claims savings, audited state returns and cash back.
501(c)(3) organizations have the exclusive advantage of opting out of their state’s unemployment tax system and instead paying dollar-for-dollar for only their former employees claims. Excess payments made into the state tax system are not refunded to employers. UST, however, provides cash back when an organization has had a positive claim history and has reduced its unemployment claims lower than initially anticipated, while also staying well-funded for future claims.
“It’s incredibly rewarding to be able to give money back to these organizations whose core mission objectives are geared towards serving their communities,” said Donna Groh, Executive Director of UST. “It allows them the funds to further expand their programs in areas where otherwise they might not have been able. In a way we’re helping to invest in the future of each nonprofit organization participating in the Trust and that’s a great feeling.”
The largest nonprofit unemployment trust in the nation, UST helps 501(c)(3) organizations nationwide save time and money through a host of workforce management solutions that include – unemployment claims management, cash flow protection, HR Workplace assistance, outplacement services and more. The company services nonprofits from all sectors with 10 or more full-time employees. UST encourages nonprofits that are currently tax-rated or direct reimbursing on their own to review their options as they may be over-paying.
From day one and onward, nonprofit employees look to training to feel capable at their job… and valued. Do you offer them that opportunity?
According to the 2015 Nonprofit Employee Engagement and Retention Report, organizations with high turnover also tended to have fewer training opportunities for employees—so providing new hires with the right tools at the right time is extremely important for retaining good-fit employees.
Employees want to feel like they’re making a contribution, and being trained on the job is a critical part of employee development and reinforcing their sense of worth. But in last year’s study, 29% of nonprofit respondents reported that they received NO onboard training, and about 1/3 said they got only 1-2 weeks.
Longer onboard training for new employees was linked to 1) lower turnover, 2) higher levels of employee job satisfaction, and 3) a lower likelihood of employees planning to quit in the next year. Organizations with 90-day onboarding strategies had the highest employee engagement. And when a company implements a successful onboarding program, they experience 54% greater productivity and 50% greater retention.
Here are 4 simple ways you can implement training at your nonprofit:
Overall, onboarding new employees (especially supervisors) can help them feel welcome and prepared to do their best. Ongoing training is a great way to develop skills, maintain goodwill among employees and keep your new hires from packing up their desks.
Discover a few other top reasons your employees might be headed for the door. For a limited time, download UST’s 2016 report, 6 Reasons Your Nonprofit Employees QUIT, and learn how you can improve your organization’s employee management strategies.
HR professionals across all industries have been expressing concern over the difficulty in recruiting qualified job candidates for some time but with a lower number of applicants actually applying, the task of locating individuals who possess the needed skills, experience and educational credentials, is becoming even more challenging in the current day.
The fact that organizations are saying they have had more difficulty filling full-time regular positions in the last 12 months than in previous years is a sign that conditions have changed. The top cited reasons – lack of sufficient work experience and job skills among job candidates, more competition from other employers and a lower number of applicants’ altogether.
A skills shortage occurs when there are not enough people with a particular skill to fill the needed number of positions within a particular occupation. Some basic skills shortages are writing, basic computer skills, reading comprehension and mathematics. And applied skills shortages are critical thinking and problem solving, work ethic, written communication and leadership. With that said, the most difficult positions to fill were for high-skilled medical (nurses, doctors, specialists), scientists and mathematicians, skilled trades (electricians, carpenters, machinists), engineering and architecture, IT/computer specialist (analysts, developers, programmers) and executives. Basic and applied skills are not only critical but necessary in order to build a foundation for a strong and stable workforce.
Many organizations have had to have their training budgets increased in order to fill the gap between qualified candidates and or training existing employees. While online training courses have become the most utilized option, many employers are still utilizing conferences and professional workshops and on the job training. Investing in education and training should be viewed as a way to meet skills shortfalls.
Though many organizations are utilizing social media and collaborating with educational institutions as recruiting strategies, the most effective strategies have been using a recruitment agency and training existing employees to take on hard-to-fill positions.
Organizations need not to only focus on finding and retaining highly skilled employees but also need to consider how they are going to develop the next generation of organizational leaders as the current workforce ages and the highly experienced and skilled workers retire. Making sure employees are not at risk of burnout will also be critical, taking into consideration that when they’re unable to fill some positions, their existing staff may be forced to do more with less.
Question: What are some tips for developing and conducting an employee engagement survey?
Answer: An employee engagement survey can be a great tool to check the temperature of your culture. When done right, the survey can help you understand the needs of your employees, which in turn benefits productivity, job satisfaction and supports employee retention. It is also an excellent tool to help you calibrate the quality of your leadership as well as your employee relations and talent management programs.
Before you start, however, ensure that the management team is ready to act on the critical feedback you’ll get. Then decide what it is you need to know. Do you want to better understand how your employees view their relationship with management, understand and support the company’s strategic direction, or learn what aspects of their work environment, compensation and benefits, work assignments, and opportunities for learning and advancement are working (or not working)?
Next, determine how you will create, disseminate, tabulate, and communicate the survey process and results. If you’re creating your own survey, consider gathering employees from different areas of the company to formulate the survey questions and include them in the employee communications process to encourage participation. This team can also be instrumental in reviewing the survey results and providing feedback about how those results should be communicated and acted upon.
Another option is to use one of the many online engagement survey tools available in the marketplace. While the questions may not be as personalized to your company issues, you can get the surveys, along with the tabulated results, done quickly.
If you do create the survey in-house, consider these best practice tips:
Encourage participation by using incentives or contests. With more feedback, you’ll have a better picture of your employees’ engagement level. Train your leaders so that they are prepared to use the survey feedback as a gift to improve performance and have productive feedback and performance improvement planning sessions.
Most importantly, don’t ask for employee feedback unless you are willing to do something with the results. Your employees will expect you to implement changes and take action. Let them know how much you value and respect them by listening and acting on their opinions and ideas.
Q&A provided by ThinkHR, powering the UST HR Workplace for nonprofit HR teams. Have HR questions? Sign your nonprofit up for a free 30-day trial here.
Moving away from a traditional new hire orientation program can be scary… BUT can also be very cost-effective.
By implementing a more robust onboarding process that introduces new team members to the company, their jobs, their co-workers and helps them better understand what the company expects from them, new hires will contribute more quickly in their jobs and are likely to stick around longer.
Presented by ThinkHR, this 60-minute webinar is designed to spark your creative juices to design a more productive and meaningful employee onboarding experience with elements that are simple, fun and tie to your company culture.
In the session, you will learn:
Throughout the presentation, Dan Riordan, President & COO of ThinkHR, will share tips and key findings with you and answer any additional questions you may have.
When: Tuesday, September 20th at 8:30 PDT / 11:30 EDT
Register: http://bit.ly/onboarding-webinar
Visit www.chooseust.org/thinkhr/ to sign up for a free 30-day trial of the UST HR Workplace, powered by ThinkHR.
Through the Noise interviewed Nicolie Lettini and Cathy Galbraith, CEO/Founder and Managing Director of CostTree, to help nonprofit employers better understand the difference between direct and indirect costs and how to accurately anticipate and budget for them annually. Listen below or check out the full library of podcasts.
Podcast Description: This podcast explains the importance of understanding where your nonprofit’s hard-raised money is going, and how you might be able to better allocate funds to your staff’s paychecks. Cathy Gallbraith constantly aims to help nonprofits understand how to create an indirect cost rate, how to use it in everyday strategic development and how to ensure organizational accountability and sustainability.
A cloud-based cost allocation software that simplifies the process of creating an indirect cost, CostTree looks to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of entities that make a difference in our lives and the communities they serve. To learn more, visit CostTree’s website at https://www.costtree.net.
To stay up-to-date on the latest cost-saving ideas and best practice tips just for nonprofits, sign up for UST’s monthly eNews: https://www.chooseust.org/enews
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.
1. Get discounts by joining a nonprofit association. You can find one here. Most associations offer their members special benefits and discounts on everything from office supplies to insurance. In fact, UST is partnered with 80 national and state nonprofit associations whose members receive a waived enrollment fee when they join UST.
2. Get group discounts and share resources. If you can combine orders with other nonprofits or companies you work with or who share your building, you’ll receive better bulk pricing on all kinds of products. You can also share the costs of maintenance with others in the same building. You may even consider piggybacking on local businesses by asking if you can include your fundraising materials in their mailings. They may welcome the good will it generates for their company.
3. Is your organization a 501(c)(3)? Are there 10 or more full-time employees? If you answered yes to both, be sure to check out UST’s alternative to paying into the state unemployment tax system. It can save thousands annually because you no longer share in the state’s pooled tax system that is often driven by for-profit companies’ unemployment claims. Watch the one-minute informational video.
4. Save on printing. Today most people are used to receiving electronic communications in lieu of bulky printed pieces in the mail. Direct mail may still be an important part of your fundraising, but perhaps you can move to an e-newsletter to cut down on printing or provide electronic versions of your board book for board meetings. You can also use lower-weight paper to reduce printing and postage costs.
5. Try teleconferencing more often. Sometimes a video or phone conference is all you need to nail down specifics of a discussion, and it will save you big time on travel costs. (It works for job candidates and board members too!)
6. Save on employee training. Use videos, online training and/or another employee to provide training to new and existing employees. Self-paced training is typically best received by employees. And if you’re already a member of UST, you receive hundreds of online training courses for free through ThinkHR, which saves you about $6,000 annually.
7. Use public relations and social media to get free publicity. Talk to local media about covering an upcoming event, or provide guest columns or blogs to be published. And yes, you must be in the Twitter-verse nowadays for free PR. Don’t have an expert on staff? Recent college grads are a good place to look for social media expertise. Just make sure for interns or new hires that you create a social media policy so they don’t accidentally tarnish your reputation.
8. Use your board. Your board members should be part of your fundraising strategy. They should be able to help find sponsors for your events, and they shouldn’t be afraid to make the “ask” during fundraising season. In addition, they should be helping you find service providers and individuals who can provide the goods and services you need.
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