How Managers Can Help Employees Hit By the OPM Breach

Many of your employees and contractors, as well as their families and friends, are probably upset to the point of distraction at the news that their personal information was stolen by hackers who breached databases at the Office of Personnel Management. They feel vulnerable, as they should. You can help them deal with their emotions by giving them facts and communicating steps they can take to minimize the effect of the hack.

At the Voice of America we have been offering one-hour seminars to inform employees about how they can protect themselves from identity theft. You should consider doing the same. There are many great free resources available to help you put on an informative seminar. One of the best is www.FTC.gov/idtheft, which has a free PowerPoint presentation and many excellent documents on ID theft prevention. Among the things you can do:

• Encourage employees to take advantage of the credit monitoring offered by CSID.com through OPM. The company will notify them every time their credit report has been accessed. The sooner they know unauthorized access has taken place, the less time they will spend fighting identity theft.
• Everyone should consider placing a freeze on their credit report.
• If an employee’s identity has been stolen, he or she should place a fraud alert on their credit reports.
• Some Employee Assistance Programs offer identity theft protection and credit report restoration services. Find out what your agency offers and share that information with employees.
• Everyone should check their credit reports once a year. The best place to do that is www.annualcreditreport.com. It is free, and there is no obligation to sign up for credit monitoring services.
• Employees should not carry their Social Security card. Ever.
• Walk around your office and make sure laptops and purses are secured.
• Give employees access to a shredder.

A list of other steps to take can be found at www.IdentityTheft.gov and https://www.usa.gov/identity-theft

Christopher Jones-Cruise is a reporter at the Voice of America’s Learning English branch in Washington. Contact him at: ChristopherTLSCruise@Gmail.com

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