Posted on: Monday, August 30, 2004

AT WORK
After 9/11, workers see the merit of corporate badges

By Tim Higgins
The Des Moines Register

Stroll around at lunch, and you'll see a sea of corporate identification badges — the businessperson's dog tag.

The 2-by-3 inch plastic card hangs from the neck or belt to tell all your co-workers that, yes indeed, you are a company employee.

But not every person wears it the same. The styles vary: clipped to the belt or lapel, hung around the neck, or tucked in the wallet or purse.

Whatever the case, the new CIB is never far from reach to answer an inquisitive stare or stern question, "ID?"

A quick inspection of downtown lunchgoers in Des Moines, Iowa, found that the vast majority of badge wearers hung theirs from the belt.

Many of them used a retractable cord that allows a person to swipe the badge at the office security door.

The sea of badges has been a common sight in recent years in many larger cities such as Washington, D.C., where you can sometimes learn the status of a person's job by the color of the badge.

Wayne Hansen has seen it all in Des Moines. His company, Control Installations of Iowa, outfits large companies with badges. Before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, however, Hansen found many corporate employees were reluctant to wear their badges.

"There were an awful lot of companies ... that we would create the badges for, but it wasn't their company policy to have them exhibit those badges," Hansen said. "There was some resentment. It was a new culture."

But after the attacks and the heightened focus on security, Hansen said, "there was very little reluctance to doing it."

At Allied Insurance, company spokesman Mike Palmer reminds all that the badges are for "employee safety. That's the No. 1 reason."

The little tags provide an easy way to make sure everyone walking the halls is supposed to be there, he said.

"As you have more employees in a space, you might not be as familiar with them," he said. "You can ensure it's an employee or a registered guest."

As expectations amplified for the badges to be displayed, security badge maker Hansen said, more companies became more creative with their designs, such as placing colorful logos on the name face.

The other day a colleague grabbed my badge, which was cracked and peeling. Parts of the image had ripped away.

"What the hell happened to yours?" he asked.

I made a concerted effort to hide my badge by submerging it in my pocket.

Apparently, I wasn't alone.

"I love," snorted my pod-mate, "how everybody is walking around with it in their pockets — like that counts."

So, awash in guilt, I dutifully requested a new badge. I felt like I won the lottery upon getting the replacement, because it was free.

I shudder to think of the alternative — losing the badge — which would have meant I would be out of my life savings. It costs $10 for a duplicate.