Hiring new employees represents one of the largest line items in any business budget. Yet many organizations overlook a significant opportunity to offset these costs through federal tax savings that can reach up to $9,600 per eligible hire.
The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) remains one of the most underutilized employer incentive programs available today. While some businesses question whether the administrative effort justifies the return, the financial impact speaks for itself.
Assessing Your Savings Potential
Consider these strategic questions when evaluating WOTC's relevance to your organization:
Does your company hire 20 or more employees annually? Organizations with regular hiring activity typically see ... Read More
Press Releases and News
07
Nov2025
05
Nov2025
Healthcare hiring has become a compliance minefield. Between Joint Commission standards, state licensing boards, CMS Conditions of Participation, and FCRA requirements, healthcare HR teams are managing more regulatory touchpoints than ever before.
The traditional approach? Cobble together multiple vendors. One handles criminal background checks. Another manages drug screening. A third verifies professional licenses. Someone else handles employment and education verification. Then there's I-9 management, fingerprinting for state databases, and ongoing credential monitoring.
This fragmented model made sense when each screening component was highly specialized. But the healthcare workforce has changed. Travel nurses, locum tenens physicians, and contract staff move between facilities constantly. ... Read More
30
Oct2025
The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) offers employers significant savings, up to $9,600 per eligible hire. Many companies understand the value of this federal tax incentive. Where they run into trouble is managing the timing requirements that determine whether credits can be claimed.
We work with employers who hire from eligible target groups regularly. They're doing everything right when it comes to building their teams. The challenge comes down to documentation and filing windows. When those get missed, valuable tax credits simply can't be recovered.
Understanding WOTC Timing Requirements
The work opportunity tax credit process has specific checkpoints that employers need to meet:
Screen ... Read More
23
Oct2025
Universal Background Screening (UBS) has partnered with WorkBright, a leading employment compliance platform, to deliver an enhanced I-9 verification solution that helps organizations onboard faster while maintaining full compliance.
Addressing Real I-9 Challenges
For companies hiring at scale, especially in regulated industries, employment eligibility verification can become a significant bottleneck. Manual I-9 processes introduce data entry errors, slow down new hire onboarding, and create audit risks that compliance teams work hard to avoid.
UBS selected WorkBright as its preferred I-9 partner because of their proven track record and technology. WorkBright has processed over 4 million I-9 forms with zero audit fines and maintains ... Read More
21
Oct2025
We've discussed previously how the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) represents a significant opportunity, offering up to $9,600 per eligible hire. Yet many organizations leave money on the table. Not because they lack qualifying candidates, but because they overlook critical employment details that determine eligibility.
At Universal Background Screening, we've seen how seemingly minor oversights in employee classification and hour tracking can derail otherwise solid WOTC strategies. The difference between maximizing your tax credits and missing them entirely often comes down to understanding exactly why employment details matter.
The Foundation: Getting Employment Classification Right
W-2 status isn't just an administrative detail, but a ... Read More
20
Oct2025
In industries like healthcare and staffing, the margin for error is razor thin. A single oversight in a background check can result in regulatory fines, reputational damage, or harm to patients, candidates and clients. At Universal Background Screening (UBS), compliance and risk mitigation form the foundation of everything we do.
Why Compliance Keeps Getting Harder
Background screening providers face growing scrutiny across the industry. Several companies have dealt with class-action lawsuits in recent years for errors and misreporting, often caused by inaccurate or outdated data pulled from secondary databases. These errors harm candidates and expose employers to serious legal and reputational risk.
At ... Read More
14
Oct2025
Every dollar counts when you're running a business. Yet many employers are unknowingly leaving substantial federal tax credits on the table that could significantly impact their bottom line while supporting meaningful workforce diversity initiatives.
The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) represents one of the most underutilized business incentives available. This federal program rewards companies that hire individuals from targeted groups, including veterans, long-term unemployed workers, and individuals receiving public assistance. With credits worth up to $9,600 per eligible hire, the financial impact can be transformative for businesses of all sizes.
The challenge? Most organizations lack the systematic approach needed to identify qualifying ... Read More
10
Oct2025
The staffing industry has always run on tight margins and high expectations. But lately? The pressure's intensified. You're competing against firms that'll undercut you on price without blinking. Your clients want faster placements but stricter compliance. And candidates? They expect a hiring experience that doesn't feel like they're applying for a mortgage.
If you're feeling the squeeze, you're not alone.
The Real Cost of Competing on Price Alone
Let's talk about the race to the bottom. Every staffing professional knows there's always someone willing to go cheaper on fees; and often, that means cutting corners on pre-employment screening or candidate quality. The problem ... Read More
07
Oct2025
PHOENIX, AZ — October 7, 2025
Universal Background Screening (UBS) has announced a new partnership with VerifyToday, expanding its suite of employer solutions to include the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) program — a federal incentive designed to reward businesses for hiring individuals from targeted groups that face barriers to employment.
For many organizations, the WOTC program represents a significant yet often overlooked opportunity: employers can receive up to $9,600 per eligible hire, but complex compliance requirements and short filing windows often make it difficult to capture those savings.
Through this partnership, UBS clients can now access a fully managed WOTC solution that ... Read More
06
Oct2025
Background screening gives clients confidence in their hiring decisions by delivering the clearest, most complete picture possible. At UBS, we've built our reputation on going deeper than standard searches, combining cutting-edge technology with investigative curiosity and the speed today's hiring timelines demand.
Why We Do This Work
At its core, background screening helps people land the right role. Every search we conduct provides clarity and facts. The goal: give clients the information they need to make confident decisions, fast.
The UBS Difference
UBS explores peripheral jurisdictions because revealing records show up in unexpected places. A candidate might have traveled somewhere for work, spent time ... Read More
03
Oct2025
Customer success at UBS shapes every interaction, every product, and every outcome we deliver. The foundation of our approach comes from understanding what it's like to be on the customer side, managing vendors and experiencing firsthand the frustrations and needs that organizations face when selecting and working with background screening partners.
Building on Real Customer Experience
UBS prioritizes proactive communication, reliability, and building trust by anticipating problems before they impact your business. This commitment stems from a deep understanding of what clients actually need and the challenges they navigate daily in their hiring and compliance processes.
The UBS Partnership Philosophy
UBS is committed to ... Read More
22
Sep2025
At Universal Background Screening (UBS), excellence in workplace drug testing services and compliance isn't the work of a single individual. It's the combined strength of an experienced, innovative, and client-focused Drug Testing and Occupational Health (DTOH) team. Together, these professionals are raising the bar for workplace safety, regulatory compliance, and employee well-being, setting UBS apart in a competitive industry.
A Team Built on Experience and Innovation
The UBS DTOH team brings together over a century of collective senior leadership experience in drug and alcohol testing program management. Their expertise spans the full spectrum of workplace compliance, from policy development and employee education ... Read More
19
Sep2025
Compliance isn't the fun part of hiring. Between industry best practices, federal regulations, and state-specific requirements that seem to change overnight, keeping up can feel like a full-time job on top of your actual full-time job.
We get it. At Universal Background Screening, we've seen HR teams juggling spreadsheets in the eleventh hour, trying to figure out if their screening process will pass their upcoming audit. We've talked to hiring managers who've had great candidates slip away because their background checks took too long to complete. And we've worked with companies scrambling to fix long-standing compliance gaps they just discovered they ... Read More
16
Sep2025
At Universal Background Screening (UBS), we know our customers depend on us not only to deliver accurate background checks, but also to help them stay ahead in an environment where compliance, safety, and risk management grow more complex every day. We're thrilled to share details about our expanding partnership with SambaSafety.
Together, UBS and SambaSafety are shaping a smarter approach to risk management. By combining the expertise of two trusted leaders, we're giving our customers access to new tools and insights that make it easier to protect people, strengthen compliance, and create safer workplaces.
Why the Partnership Matters
Employers today can't afford blind ... Read More
