Why Identification Cards are Critical in Today’s Economic Times

By: Robert Thomson Click author's name for more of his/her articles

As unemployment rates climb past 8%, we know from history that crime increases along side of unemployment. Because of this, organizations and businesses need to protect their reputation along with their doors. A simple addition to discourage crime and enhance a company's perception to their customers is through the use of ID cards while employees are on the job.

The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports show that in the US from 1970 to 1993 crime rose with the unemployment rate. Later the same report shows that from 1992 to 1996 as the employment rate rose again there was a dramatic drop in crime particularly in poverty areas. There are different reports that show that a 2% drop in unemployment would be equivalent to a 30% drop in assaults, 14% drop in rape and robbery and a 9% decline in burglary. With these statistics all based on a drop of unemployment, one can only assume the reverse is true as well. Since we have had a nearly 3% increase in unemployment in the past twelve months that would indicate based on these statistics a 13.5% increase in burglaries alone just in the past year.

Directly tied to the unemployment are the number of corporate and personal bankruptcies that have taken place recently. According to the United States Insolvency Service there has been a 56% increase in insolvent businesses in the first quarter of this year over the same quarter in 2008. This equates to nearly 5,000 businesses that have become upside down financially in the first quarter of 2009. Additionally in the month of May 2009 there were over 120,000 personal and corporate bankruptcies filed. With these numbers it's easy to assume there are many newly unemployed and desperate people everywhere.

In this new environment, businesses and organizations need to protect both their property and their reputation. Requiring employee's to wear ID cards is an effective and simple way to increase your security with identification. ID cards can add to the perception from your customers when employees are out of the office by adding a sense of comfort, especially those whose businesses you are pursuing.

There are more sophisticated locks utilizing RFID, barcodes, biometric scanners and the like and they can all be added to enhance the security on your ID cards. These technologies are always becoming more affordable every year thanks to the speed and production of the security industry and mass production. However, by simply requiring employee's to wear ID badges in the workplace adds to a company’s level of security. Today there are solutions available for both large and small organizations through online security companies that offer ID cards as a primary business. Organizations like FullIdentity.com can also integrate background checks, holograms, RFID and whatever technology you are looking to implement into your identification card solution to protect your business.

As consumers are spending less and watching for opportunities to save every dollar they can, business has been difficult in this economy. Organizations need to be sure to take the best care of each customer as the search for new and repeat business becomes more difficult. Protecting a business's reputation by not allowing individuals to infiltrate your organization or impersonate your employee's is critical. ID cards can be an easy to implement and a huge factor in the verification of who someone says they are and add to a company's credibility.

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About The Author: Being the founder of Virtual Tournament Director and www.FullIdentity.com, Allen Richardson has developed solutions for registration and identification cards for over seven years. Additionally, he has served as a consultant to Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railway, Southwest Airlines and many other organizations..