Identity Fraud in Focus quarterly report
8 min
It’s not the catchy tagline your marketing team spent weeks crafting. It’s not that fancy new logo you’re told will resonate well with millennials. It’s not even the product or service you’re selling. What matters most to the success of your company? Your employees — they’re your most valuable asset.
Are you protecting your company’s most valuable asset? If not, you should be — because there’s never been a better time.
Tax breaks provide an excellent opportunity
When the U.S. government passed the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act — which effectively reduced the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent — companies reacted in a myriad of ways. Some are pocketing the extra cash. Others plan to invest in their infrastructure. But those who have been getting the most attention have been investing the extra money in their people.
Chipotle decided to do all three. In addition to banking the extra funds, they plan to invest $20,000 into each location. With 24,000 restaurants, this means the popular Mexican restaurant’s remodeling plans will cost somewhere around $50 million.
What about the remaining cash?
Chipotle will invest about a third of their estimated tax savings into their employees in a number of ways. The first is a retention incentive. Restaurant workers who stay at the company until the end of the year will receive a $1,000 bonus, while central office staff will receive an equivalent amount in stock. But what’s garnering the most buzz is Chipotle’s investment in improving employee benefits.
Why invest in employee benefits?
Offering employees additional, better benefits is a smart move. Benefits have always been critical to a company’s ability to attract and retain top talent, but they’re now more important than ever. In fact, in a Glassdoor survey, nearly 60 percent of respondents said benefits and perks are a “top” consideration before accepting a job. Meanwhile, an astonishing 80 percent agreed they’d prefer additional benefits to a pay raise. The question then becomes, which benefits should a company invest in?
Why choose identity protection as an employee benefit?
There are many reasons identity protection makes the perfect employee benefit. But let’s start with the fact that Americans now rank criminal hacking as the number one threat to their health, safety, and prosperity. With new data breaches occurring on a near-daily basis, can you blame them for being concerned?
Making matters even worse, as much as 50 percent of identity theft originates in the workplace. When your employees have their identities stolen, it doesn’t just affect their finances. It could also impact their freedom, health, and safety — not to mention your company’s bottom line.
On average, it takes between 100 to 200 hours and six months to resolve the problems caused by identity theft. But, depending on how long the theft remains undetected, it can take years to fully resolve. This equals a lot of distraction and missed work, which spells big problems for your company. Disengaged employees lead to 20 percent lower sales, 17 percent less productivity, and 21 percent lower profitability.
It’s been proven time and time again: When you protect your employees, you protect your company. Perhaps that’s why BenefitsPro named identity protection the top voluntary benefit of 2018 and Forbes declared it one of the best ways to attract and retain talent.
Which identity protection is right for your company?
Not all identity protection is created equal. When selecting a plan for your employees, you should choose a program that protects both your employees and your company’s bottom line. You need an identity protection service that goes far beyond what traditional credit monitoring services offer. At a minimum, the service you select should include:
Comprehensive product education and a dedicated client relationship advisor
Scalable and flexible payment models
Expert customer service representatives based in the U.S.
Accounts protected by two-factor authentication
Proactive alerts that notify employees on applications for credit cards, wireless carriers, utility accounts, and non-credit accounts
Monitoring of high-risk identity activity such as employee password resets, fund transfers, unauthorized account access, compromised credentials, address changes, and public record alerts
Tools to monitor and preserve an employee’s reputation across social networks
A dedicated advocate to guide and manage an employee’s full recovery process, restoring credit, identity, accounts, finances, and their sense of security in the event identity theft does occur
Identity theft insurance to cover your employee’s lost wages, legal fees, medical records request fees, CPA fees, child care fees, and more
Join the revolution
Companies are no longer defined by the product they sell. Buyers care more about who they’re buying from, what that company stands for, and — most importantly — how they treat their employees and customers. And businesses are taking notice.
As a result of this year’s tax break, FedEx will make contributions to employee pension plans, advance annual pay incentives, and increase performance-based incentive plans. Honeywell will increase their 401(k) matching, and JetBlue Airways, Bank of America, and Comcast are all giving their employees bonuses.
These are just a few of the companies across the nation using the tax savings to better the lives of their employees. Will your business join them?