‘Tis the season for shoplifting.

A piece in an edition of this week’s New York Times highlighted the rise in employee theft at retailers nationwide. For many, fraudulent gift cards are the weapon of choice.

“Gift card fraud is spiking,” Joshua Bamfield, author of the Global Retail Theft Barometer, told the Times. “To employees, this is like currency. It’s almost as good as the U.S. dollar.”

Employee theft costs American businesses more than $35 billion a year. By most accounts, theft and shoplifting among workers appears on the rise.

Companies might want to consider adding Employee Theft Bonds to their list of New Year’s resolutions.

These bonds help insulate companies against financial harm in the event one of their employees steals, be it products or intellectual property. Industries like retail, accounting and even research-and-development can all benefit from these key risk-mitigation tools.

There are three major types of Employee Theft Bonds.

Business owners can take a host of steps to anticipate and prevent loss. Many have implemented increasingly strict job guidelines, screening programs and security as cases of employee theft have risen. But an Employee Theft Bond is simply added security to help ease the blow when workers find a way to beat the system.

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