The #1 way to avoid paying unemployment

A bad hire can can damage office morale. Sometimes employees don’t work out and need to be terminated. However, you might hesitate before you fire them because you don’t want a lawsuit for wrongful termination, and you certainly want to avoid paying unemployment.

Here is the number one way to avoid unemployment costs:

When employees quit voluntarily, they will have a harder time receiving unemployment pay, so quitting is the best-case scenario. Of course, many times poor employees refuse to see they are the problem so you may have to fire them.

However, when a problem employee does quit, make sure you document extensively what led up to the resignation. Then when you receive a notice that your former employee is filing for unemployment, you can submit your documentation for an appeal. This can and has worked for optometry employers. The key is to document all threats that the employee made to quit, and also to document that neither you nor your staff encouraged the individual to quit.

One last word of advice: In your employment manual, make sure that you use the term “at will employment” for referencing staff employment. An employment attorney is an important part of your team and can be instrumental in leading you the optometrist to make these key human resource adjustments.