4 Things Businesses Should Consider To Improve Physical Security

1000 US small business owners were surveyed in 2016; nearly 10% said they had suffered from burglary or theft.

Burglary or theft can cause small businesses massive financial difficulties, not to mention potential disputes with insurance providers regarding any potential damage or cash recovery.

By not having any security measures in place, your business can be easily identified by criminals as an easy target for burglary or theft.

If you think about it, when you are purchasing something online, you always look at the address bar to ensure you see the green lock to make sure that your payment is safe and secure; why should your business be any different?

Remember, not just physical assets are valuable; digital data on physical-digital devices such as laptops count as a data breach and may contain information that is valuable for criminals such as credit card information or social security numbers.

Now is the time to take your security more seriously.

1. Access Control

Installing an access control system can add a physical deterrent to any criminal or person that may wish to enter parts of your business that should not be accessed by anyone. Employees using a form of access control shows any visitors or customers that your business takes their security seriously.

According to Cssltd.co.uk, 30% of intruders entered the premises through an unlocked door.

Access control can be customized completely to allow only certain employees access to specific areas.

With this flexibility of picking and choosing who has access to what, this greatly reduces the chance that someone could simply walk in, walk out and take whatever they wish from your business with no issue.

2. Employee ID

Issuing employees with ID cards will ensure that identifying individuals is easy. ID cards can be customized to have additional security features on them, such as user access control cards as employee ID.

Combining employee ID with an access control system adds an extra layer of security that is often not even thought of.

There is a wide range of ID card security features such as barcodes, QR codes, mag stripe and more.

In 2016, Dutch businesses lost almost €1.5million due to business identity theft.

3. Lanyards

Lanyards are a versatile object that recently has even been picked up by top-end fashion brands that sell for extortionate amounts of money. Luckily, lanyards for your business do not need to be that expensive.

Small businesses can utilize plain, pre-printed or fully personalized lanyards. Plain or pre-printed lanyards are available in a wide range of colours at a low price point. For example, using colour coding with lanyards to determine which employee belongs to which department can assist security in identifying who belongs where.

Personalized lanyards may cost more, but they will be exclusively available to the business as the design will be completely personalized for you. Whilst personalized lanyards are great for security, they also give your employees an important marketing tool.

Lanyards are handy. They can hold ID cards, car keys and more. Employees will find other uses for your personalized lanyards when not at the business premises. A company such as ID Card Centre can supply your business with personalized lanyards that fit your needs.

4. Training employees

If your business can afford to hire security staff, that’s great. Other small businesses may not have the spare funds for this.

A more cost-effective solution is to ensure all employees understand security and why it’s paramount for the business to ensure it is safe and secure.

Training your employees also tells them that you trust them, which means that they will want to work harder for the business.

By ensuring all your employees have been trained to follow strict security measures, this can deter any potential criminal from attempting to enter your premises.