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Workplace security... what can you do?
Your business is your livelihood and unless you’re working alone, it’s likely to provide employment to some employees too. It sounds obvious but it’s essential to keep your business secure along with its assets, no matter how low on crime you think the local area or how much you trust those visiting.
Quantum2 hasn’t yet delved into the technological world of cyber security (give us time!) and so we’re going to stick to giving you some tips on keeping on top of office security, people and contents included.
Keeping your business secure applies to a range of assets: the big things, like access to buildings, and the smaller things like laptops. They may vary in size and value, but they are all critical in ensuring that you remain ‘open for business’. We’re going to go through several steps that you can take to protect your business from security risks.
Your business is your livelihood and unless you’re working alone, it’s likely to provide employment to some employees too. It sounds obvious but it’s essential to keep your business secure along with its assets, no matter how low on crime you think the local area or how much you trust those visiting.
People
When we think of people and security, our minds may immediately make the jump to intruders but it’s important to think of your own employees too - you have a duty to keep them secure as much as you want to prevent ‘unknowns’ entering your building.
It’s important to consider the security of your people 24 hours a day - intruders can infiltrate your building at any time, not just at night as we may imagine. Think people coming in to fix a leaky tap, interview candidates and even people visiting from other businesses. We’re not suggesting that you need to be suspicious of everyone, but a few office security measures will never go amiss in these situations.
• A first line of defence has to be the door security. Can anyone walk in or do you have doors with a code that only employees know? Do employees have swipe cards with photographic ID to grant them access every day?
• Alarm – an alarm which alerts the local police is a fantastic burglary prevention measure. We know it sounds obvious but you’d be amazed at how many businesses cut corners and install fake alarm boxes.
• CCTV – this is another great deterrent to help prevent criminal activity at your place of work and it’s not as expensive as you might thing. Even some homeowners are installing it.
• Human barriers to entry – a security guard is perfectly placed to assess the purpose of people’s visits to your office. They’re human, not a machine, and so can really work to find out what’s going on and who’s hanging around. On the negative side, you may be sent different people each day and the inconsistency may prove frustrating.
The Quantum2 recommendation would be door security in the first instance.
It could be that your business has grown rapidly and you quite simply haven’t had the time to think about the extras such as security and that’s understandable. But, in order for you to continue to expand smoothly, you need to protect the assets that are helping you on that journey.
People
• Alarm – an alarm which alerts the local police is a fantastic burglary prevention measure. We know it sounds obvious but you’d be amazed at how many businesses cut corners and install fake alarm boxes.
• CCTV – this is another great deterrent to help prevent criminal activity at your place of work and it’s not as expensive as you might thing. Even some homeowners are installing it.
• Human barriers to entry – a security guard is perfectly placed to assess the purpose of people’s visits to your office. They’re human, not a machine, and so can really work to find out what’s going on and who’s hanging around. On the negative side, you may be sent different people each day and the inconsistency may prove frustrating.
Physical assets
The safety of your people is paramount but after them, you need to focus on the tools that help them to work – laptops, tablets, mobile phones and the like. Day to day, when they’re in use, they’ll be on your employees’ desks or with them as they travel around but what happens at night? If they don’t take them home to continue working (we’re not advocating long days here! But we know flexible and agile working is becoming more commonplace) are they left on people’s desks? Well, if they are, they really shouldn’t be as they are easy pickings for intruders.
An office security solution that Quantum2 has installed several times are lockers. Now, before you start imagining your old school metal lockers with out of shape doors and dodgy locks, think again! We have some very modern lockers which are sleek, compact and can fit in with the style of office to make them very discreet. They can have digital locks or combination locks but what’s really innovative is that they have charging points within them so that the device is ready to go the next working day! They’re not at all clunky or difficult to use which means that your team will be more inclined to use them. There’s also room for people’s personal belongings too, allowing them to create a clutter free working space. Take a look at these lockers from Spacestor.
As much as we love being part of whole office refurbishment, you don’t need to undertake such a big project to enjoy the benefits of the lockers – they’re easy for us to install as a standalone item. A definite recommendation from us.
Paper
Yep we know paper is being used less and less in an office as the world becomes more digital but, in our experience, offices are not quite paperless yet.
The data that you have on paper could be valuable – plans for expansion, confidential legal documents that need a manual signature, confidential bank statements or agreements, even some scribbles on a notepad might reveal to competitors what you have planned. An end of day ‘clean desk’ policy is really important, not just so that your cleaners can clean but also so that your team gets used to putting away sensitive documents.
The documents that you need to keep either overnight or for longer must be locked away when there’s no one in the office. Lockable, secure filing cabinets are a must as are lockable drawers on desks - this unit from Bisley is great for this and also facilitates hot desking as it can be moved around the office really easily.
Shredding documents that are superfluous to requirements is critical to protect your intellectual property and sensitive documents. Shredders come in all sizes, depending on the number of people using them and are really easy to use. Companies will even come to take away the shredded paper!
There are four ideas to make your workplace more secure and protect your assets, both physical and intellectual.
• Improve your door security – access passes is the easiest option
• Lockers to secure your devices, as well as personal belongings
• Secure filing cabinets for paper documentation that you need to keep.
• Shredders for documentation that you no longer need
If you have grown rapidly and haven’t had a chance to think about office security or if you’ve been the victim of a break-in or intellectual property theft and want to make sure it doesn’t happen again, please contact us at Quantum2 and we can help you put strong measures in place to prevent future security breaches.
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