From Onboarding to Offboarding: Identity Risk Across the Employee Lifecycle

In 2026, identity theft has continued to evolve from a personal financial nuisance into a more sophisticated threat that can sometimes also compromise the modern workforce. From the moment a new hire provides their PII (Personally Identifiable Information) to years after they may have moved on, an organization often remains interconnected with that individual's identity.

Equifax® recently hosted a webinar featuring Katie Baldwin (Solutions Consultant), Dan Pongonis (Solutions Engineer), and Ralonda Jasper (ID Watchdog®) to discuss the "Workforce Identity Risk Map." They shared how compromised identities can create cascading impacts—ranging from emotional distress and financial loss to eroded enterprise trust.

Key Takeaways: Helping Protect the Employee Journey

• Data Multiplication: An employee's data lives across payroll systems, benefits enrollment platforms, tax reporting systems, third-party vendors, and cloud storage environments. This creates a massive "web of data" that bad actors can exploit.
   

• The "Day Zero" Onboarding Risk: Fraud is now appearing at the very start of the lifecycle. With AI-generated resumes and falsified documents sometimes becoming nearly impossible to spot, proactive verification during onboarding is critical to help ensure a "clean" start.
   

• The Productivity Drain: When an employee's identity is stolen, it often isn't just a personal issue. Victims spend up to 40 hours* resolving the fraud—often during business hours—which can lead to workforce disruption and stress.
   

• The SUI Tax Impact: Unemployment fraud remains a potential liability. If fraudulent claims go undetected, they can drive an employer's State Unemployment Insurance (SUI) tax rates higher, sometimes for three to five years, costing mid-size companies possibly thousands in unnecessary tax hikes.
   

• Closing the Loop: Many employers want to help protect their entire workforce but often lack the budget. Solutions like ID Watchdog Total Guard Monitoring® allow organizations to help better protect up to 95%** of the workforce left vulnerable by traditional voluntary plans at no additional cost to the employer.
   

• The Power of Resolution Support: Detection helps find the fire, but recovery helps clean up the mess. Providing employees with 24/7/365 access to resolution specialists who help employees with the heavy lifting so that the burden is reduced for the HR team and the employee.

Watch the Full Webinar

Identity fraud is a workforce risk that requires a more holistic strategy: detection, monitoring, and recovery. To learn how to help shift from reactive firefighting to more proactive security and better protect your organization's bottom line, watch the full session on-demand.

Watch the On-Demand Webinar Here

*Source: PWC Employee Financial Wellness Survey
**Source: Equifax Data

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