The Importance of Privacy Protection Benefits During the Great Resignation

Today’s Evolving Workforce Makes Privacy Protection as an Employee Benefit More Important than Ever

The Great Resignation has created a unique challenge for employers. With employment opportunities at an all-time high and the office landscape changing as the pandemic starts to wane, employees are starting to evaluate if their current position is the right fit for them. The Harvard Business Review has found that over the last decade, workers voluntarily leaving their jobs has increased each year by roughly 0.1%. In 2021, it jumped by almost 0.5% year over year. When the pandemic started, job security was a real threat. Many people lost their jobs and those who didn’t either couldn’t find new work or didn’t want to risk losing their current position. When things started to feel more secure in 2021 and job opportunities started to pop up everywhere, people leaving voluntarily increased. So, what drives individuals to seek new employment opportunities?

The Growing Concern of Data Privacy

In the U.S., 86% of the general population has a growing concern about data privacy and 40% do not trust corporations to handle their personal information ethically. That concern is not without cause. The FTC reports that only 20 years ago, the amount of fraud claims filed in a year sat around 300,000. In 2020, that number was at 4.7 million.

This concern cannot be ignored by employers. The rise of fraudulent activity means we can’t ask if it will happen, but when. And when it does happen, there are two key burdens left on the individual: time and money. A fraudulent claim can take up to a year to resolve and without tools or resources to help, individuals are left to manage the claim on their own. Most of the businesses that handle fraud claims hold regular business hours, causing individuals to manage the issue during their work hours. Stress also leads to lower productivity in employees. The more external stresses left on an employee will impact their job performance.

The Pros to Privacy Protection Benefits

Offering Privacy Protection benefits is a great way for companies to reduce stressful situations for their employees, improve retention, and create competitive advantages in hiring. In a recent survey of HR professionals and benefits decision makers, performed by BenefitsPro and IDX, it was found that 90% of companies believe their employees want privacy protection as part of their benefits package. However, only one third of companies are currently offering it.

What is holding companies back from providing these benefits to their employees? Protecting an employee’s identity is more than a service for that individual. Where an individual works, the role they hold, and other company data could be integrated into their personal information. While it might not be sensitive company data, that information getting leaked to data brokers or the dark web, could create an influx of phishing and other scams in the company.

A strong privacy protection benefits package will offer employees not only basic identity and privacy monitoring, but also data removal if personal information is found with data brokers, social media monitoring to check for account hacks and scams, and dark web monitoring. A solution that also offers additional tools such as a password manager should be on the top of an employer’s list. Strong, unique passwords are the first line of defense to fraud. This tool can be used personally and professionally, giving a company added protection to their own systems and programs.

The Power of Employee Benefits

The Pew Research Center surveyed Americans who voluntarily left their jobs to understand why. While many cited low pay as a reason, 23% cited poor employee benefits as their reason for leaving and of those who found a new job, 42% said their benefits improved with their new employer. The benefits that a company offers can play a key role not only in retention of an employee, but also in the ability to hire new talent. This hot job market means employers cannot rely on salary alone to land talent. Offering standard benefits, such as medical and a 401k is important, but including other unique benefits, such as Privacy Protection, can increase a company’s ability to retain and hire employees.

The IDX Benefit

If you are looking to add privacy protection as a benefit option for your employees, IDX offers a comprehensive solution that will protect your employees and your business. Beyond just identity and privacy monitoring as well as dark web monitoring, IDX’s Privacy Protection also offers:

• ForgetMe data removal: if your employee’s private information is found in any of the many nefarious online data broker websites, IDX will initiate the process of having this data removed
• Social Media Protection: your employees won’t have to worry about the increasing scams and fraud taking place on the various social media sites as our solution will monitor for that activity for them
• Password Management Tool: this tool allows for the saving of passwords in a secure vault as well as giving the ability to create strong, unique passwords that are hard to hack
• Insurance: If identity theft does take place, our solution offers up to $1 million in insurance to alleviate the financial stress caused by fraud
• 100% Recovery Guarantee: we will help take care of recovering a stolen identity if it were to happen, so your employees can spend less time dealing with a fraud claim
  

As an employee benefits manager, you can empower your people to take back control of their privacy. Contact us today to learn more about how you can keep your business and its employees protected.

For part 4 of the BenefitsPRO survey series, click here.