Situation

The unemployment tax increase for Florida employers this year turned out to be much bigger than expected due to the soaring unemployment rate and a law change passed last year. Tax rate notices issued in December 2009 reflected this increase. Florida lawmakers acted quickly this week to pass legislation to rollback that increase for two years. Governor Crist signed the bills immediately.

What Employers Need to Know

The legislation delays the increase of the taxable wage base from $7,000 to $8,500 until 2012 when it will increase to $8,500. It will also change the factors used to calculate employers’ tax rates for 2010 and 2011 resulting in lower rates. The minimum rate for 2010 will decrease but the maximum rate will remain 5.4%.

The law change also contains a special installment payment plan option which allows employers to spread their 2010 and 2011 payments out over a designated period of time. An annual $5.00 administrative fee will be charged employers that want to take advantage of the installment plan. Information on how to take advantage of this option will be on the state electronic filing website and the blank quarterly reports.

The payment of interest on the federal advances will be made through an employer assessment. Barring a federal law change, interest will be due beginning in 2011.

What You Can Expect

The state will be issuing revised tax rate notices on March 22nd to reflect the lower factors.

Tammy Mullin

HR Service Matters

By: Mike Smith

If you were curious about my previous blog concerning employee engagement, I saw a recent article from Knowledge@Wharton that presents some very interesting research results from Wharton management professor Adam Grant.  While the research is focused on what motivates employees, it is hard to imagine a motivated employee who is not engaged with the organization.

The premise in my blog was that recording and then replaying videos of employees relating positive experiences that customers had encountered with a product or service would help engage other employees.  Even a simple video made with a Flip Video camera would surely do the trick.  For details, here is a link to my previous blog:

http://tiny.cc/oe5IA

Adam Grant’s notion was straightforward.  If a person knows that their work has had a meaningful, positive impact on others, that realization can make the employee happier and more productive (and I contend more engaged).  Here is a sample of Adam Grant’s research results:

In his 2007 study, Grant and a team of researchers -- Elizabeth Campbell, Grace Chen, David Lapedis and Keenan Cottone from the University of Michigan -- arranged for one group of call center workers to interact with scholarship students who were the recipients of the school's fundraising largess. It wasn't a long meeting -- just a five-minute session where the workers were able to ask the student about his or her studies. But over the next month, that little chat made a big difference. The call center was able to monitor both the amount of time its employees spent on the phone and the amount of donation dollars they brought in. A month later, callers who had interacted with the scholarship student spent more than two times as many minutes on the phone, and brought in vastly more money: a weekly average of $503.22, up from $185.94.

"Even minimal, brief contact with beneficiaries can enable employees to maintain their motivation," the researchers write in their paper, titled "Impact and the Art of Motivation Maintenance: The Effects of Contact with Beneficiaries on Persistence Behavior," published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 

You can review the complete article at:

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2436

The big takeaway for me is that we need to make sure we are providing opportunities for our employees to interact with customers (or the ultimate end users) on a regular basis.  Hearing the benefits directly from the customer or end user is a powerful way to engage employees in the organization.  If employees can’t meet the end user directly, then make a video and post it on employee portals or replay during periodic employee webcasts.   Even if the customer is internal, take time to capture on a regular basis the benefits the customer experiences so all can see that their work is making a difference.

Situation

Late on March 2, 2010, Congress passed and President Obama quickly signed a one-month extension to expiring unemployment insurance (UI) benefits provisions.

What Employers Need to Know

The legislation does not create any additional or new UI benefits. It simply pushes back the expiration date of current benefit provisions, from February 28, 2010 to April 5, 2010. These UI assistance measures are:

Next Steps

Despite this temporary extension, thousands of individuals are beginning to exhaust the maximum 99 weeks of combined state and federal UI benefits. Therefore, it is expected Congress will work on additional extensions through the end of 2010.

Special Note: The temporary, one-month extension also applies to the COBRA subsidy originally enacted under the 2009 Recovery Act.

Tammy Mullin

Yesterday I posted a blog about Vermont legislative activity related to a possible new payroll tax paid by the employee to help fund unemployment benefits.  Decided to do a bit more digging and found out that a couple other states are already assessing a payroll tax for this purpose.  Those states are:

Alaska - charges 0.5% of wages

New Jersey - charges 0.3825% of wages generally and 0.0825% for workers of governmental reimbursers

Pennsylvania - 0.08% of wages in certain instances.

Just thought I'd pass this along. 

Tammy Mullin

A surprising turn of events in Vermont, well, surprising to me at least.  I read today that legislators are proposing an additional payroll tax to help replenish the state's depleted unemployment trust fund.  The 0.2% surcharge would be collected from individuals making over $40,000 a year and bring an additional $100 million in new revenue for the fund over the next four years.

Seems like a pretty bold move that goes way outside the box of the traditional model of employers paying in and benefits getting paid out.  This is sure to cause some serious debate.  Quite possibly even a ruckus. 

It's interesting as there is an ongoing difference of opinion regarding who actually pays for unemployment insurance.  Most say the employer of course (since they write the check), but some say it is the actual worker who pays the insurance in the form of lower wages (if not for the tax, the employer would have paid them more).  Well, if this legislation is passed, at least in Vermont, there will be strong evidence on both sides of this running debate.

Tammy Mullin

In addition to figuring out where to get additional revenue, some states are starting to also look at how to adjust policy to cut down on the draws against the unemployment trust fund. 

Check out South Carolina where a "Senate proposal" would "give the agency the right to deny unemployment benefits to workers who are fired for illegal drug use.  Workers also could be denied benefits for gross misconduct, which includes reckless damage to employer property, employee theft, and criminal assault or battery against a fellow employee."

Claimants collecting who were fired for misconduct represented about "10 percent of total benefits [paid] between July 1, 2006, and June 30, 2009."

Tammy Mullin

In this economic climate it is no secret that reimbursers are looking for ways to cut unemployment costs. Some best practices to keep in mind include:

Send All Details at the Claim Level

Winning claims at the first level will save money since reimbursers do not automatically receive benefit credits if a decision is reversed at the hearing level. Hearings can take 4-6 weeks to get scheduled and a decision rendered. This means you would pay 4-6 weeks of benefits you might not get back.

For Schools: The Importance of Reasonable Assurance Letters

An overriding consideration in determining employees’ eligibility for UI benefits is whether or not they have “reasonable assurance” of returning to work in the next school term. We continue to recommend that the “reasonable assurance” be in written form. Having these letters distributed before the end of the school year can result in more favorable decisions and avoid the need for a hearing.

Continue to Manage Your Human Resources Wisely

Practices such as performing good reference checks before hiring and following an employee’s progress from the moment the person is hired is critical. See previous blog serious on The Hiring Process - "Part I - Reviewing the Job Application", "Part II - Test Skills" and "Part III - The Interview".

Provide Timely Information to the State 

An untimely response will result in loss of appeal rights and you being charged for benefits collected. Ensuring timeliness when contesting unemployment claims can save you money. There is usually only a 10-day timeframe to reply before benefits go through.

Proper Management of Layoffs

It is never a good time to lay someone off. Helping severed employees find another job through coaching or reviewing their resume is beneficial to the employee as well as the employer. The less time individuals remain unemployed the lower the employer’s cost will be.  See previous blog "What Should be the Focus of your Unemployment Cost Management Program".

Tammy Mullin 

An element of progressive discipline, warnings and corrective actions are an effective way of ensuring an employee understands what is expected of them. State agencies look for warnings, in most instances, to determine if the claimant was discharged for misconduct—a deliberate or willful violation of company rules.

It is the employer’s responsibility to ensure that all employees are aware of company, rules policies and procedures.

Guidelines:

• When your company issues an employee handbook or rules, retain an acknowledgement of receipt in the employee’s file.
• Special policies and procedures should, if possible, be posted.
• Be consistent: enforce rules and policies uniformly
• Be specific and objective when you counsel employees. Avoid using general statements, e.g., “poor performance,” to describe willful or deliberate violations of rules within the employee’s control. Permit the employee to respond in writing.
• Note witnesses, dates, time, etc. of documented incidents
• Request employees to sign all warning notices. Witnesses to warnings are recommended. If the employee refuses to sign, write on the notice that the employee refused to sign, and ask the witness to sign his/her name next to the statement. Remember, signing a warning notice does not mean the employee is admitting to the offense; it is simply an acknowledgement of receipt.
• Follow up. If you warn a suspended employee, document what is expected and note any important timeframes.

Although written warnings are better, notes or verbal warnings are important if documented.

Tammy Mullin

The Senate this morning passed (70-to-28) the $15-billion jobs package offered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., which includes payroll tax breaks, bond-financing for state and local infrastructure projects, a small-business expensing provision, and an extension of federal highway programs.

Angela Lockman

Employers know the use of progressive discipline helps an employee understand that a performance problem or opportunity for improvement exists and helps the employee overcome those performance problems and satisfy job expectations. It is most successful when it assists an individual to become an effectively performing member of the organization.

Failing that, progressive discipline enables the organization to fairly, and with substantial documentation, terminate the employment of employees who are ineffective and unwilling to improve. Organizations whose managers follow recognized documentation best practices are in a much better position to protest unwarranted unemployment claims.

There are five elements to all effective documentation of progressive discipline:

1. Date of the infraction

2. Details of the infraction  

3. Explanation of corrective action needed

4. Statement of next disciplinary steps  

5. Signature of the employee

Tammy Mullin