Page 35 - BusinessWest July 7, 2021
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businesses absorb the massive unemployment- insurance costs facing them.
That controversy over the so-called solvency assessment has certainly put Murphy and her company’s work under a much brighter light. Indeed, while she’s been very successful at what she does, companies don’t need UTCA’s services until they need them — and over the years, it has operated in relative anonymity, if that’s the right word.
But the recent debate over the solvency assessment and state’s decision to not use stimu- lus funds, and instead stretch the payments out over the next 20 years, has brought Murphy and her firm to settings ranging from an East of the River Five Town Chamber of Commerce (ERC5)
“ I feel the market needs a reliable, responsible, client-focused broker in the industry, and I’m going to keep slugging as long as I can.”
webinar to BusinessWest’s podcast.
It’s a subject she’s passionate about, and she
believes the state’s decision will have some long- term ramifications.
“I think it’s ill-advised, and I think it will put the state at a competitive disadvantage,” she said, noting that many bordering states and others
as well are friendlier from an unemployment-
tax standpoint. “From all we’ve heard, the gov- ernor and the Legislature have no intention
of revisiting this matter, and I think that’s very
shortsighted.”
As for where people work, Murphy said the
pandemic has shown her — and it should have shown every employer — that workers don’t need to be in the office to be effective, and they don’t even have to be in Massachusetts, which is good for employers, but potentially not so good for the Bay State, especially given its recent stance on unemployment costs and the manner in which other states have become much more business- friendly in that regard.
Taxing Situation
As she talked with BusinessWest, Murphy was preparing for what she expects to be — and really hopes will be — the last move her company makes. Or, at least, the last move she will make.
Indeed, as she walked amid furniture and boxes with sticky notes on them to tell the mov- ers where to put them, she said she was trading space at 1350 Main St. in downtown Springfield for a building she purchased in West Springfield, one more suited to the hybrid/remote work model the company has adopted, and one that will even let employees work outdoors of they so choose.
“We want to make it a modern, fun place to work,” she explained, adding that the company should be moved in by mid-July.
The move is the latest of several, an indication of how UTCA has grown over the years, not only in size, but in stature within the realm of unem- ployment and, as the name on the letterhead says, unemployment tax control.
Murphy was handling such work for a larger firm, one that is no longer in business, when she decided it was time to go into business for herself
— with a different business model.
That model was to take a handful of clients
that were encouraging her to strike out on her own and start a business in Western Mass. and launch a venture focused entirely on helping companies manage and reduce their unemploy-
  ment costs.
“I was toying with the idea of doing some-
thing, but I was still unclear on whether this was the path I wanted to take,” she recalled, adding that she credits those clients with being persis- tent and convincing her to take the plunge.
Starting with just herself and a single employ- ee, she he took that small but reliable block of clients and continually built upon that base, pri- marily by differentiating herself from the larger competitors — “huge data warehouses,” as she described them — such as Equifax and Experian, for which unemployment services are part of a one-stop-shop model and, typically, a loss leader.
The differentiation, in addition to focusing solely on unemployment-tax matters, comes in the company’s proactive, rather than reactive,
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