Every organization needs to prioritize office security in 2023. Without protection, you put your business at risk for crimes, damage, injuries, and more. It’s crucial for office security to be treated as an ongoing process that you’re always revisiting and refining. As criminals grow brazen, they find new ways to break through physical security.
Another important component of office security in 2023 is the people. A business may have all the right processes and technologies in place, but all it takes is one employee’s mistake for security to fail. Humans are the weakest link in security. Here’s how to protect your business, all of its assets, and every person who comes to the building.
Do a Risk Assessment of Your Office Security
A risk assessment reviews all your building assets and processes, such as entering the building, to identify what needs protecting. Its goal is to find and close any security gaps. A good place to start is to document the office building layout.
The purpose of the office building layout is to gain information on the needed security systems and where they belong. For instance, if you decide to invest in or expand your security camera system, the layout will help your security consultants determine the best and most strategic places to mount the cameras.
You may not be able to implement all the recommendations that come out of a risk assessment. The following is a list of things you want to achieve while completing a risk assessment.
1. Select the assessment team.
It’s best to work with a security consultant. A risk assessment that is not done correctly could cost more than one completed with an expert. Anything can happen. It could be you implement the wrong security solutions. Or if it’s a good solution, it may not be optimized for your building.
2. Choose stakeholders.
Since you’re working with an external assessment team, you should have internal stakeholders. Someone has to hold the assessment team responsible and ensure building employees follow through on action items that come out of the assessment.
The stakeholders can consist of cross-functional members. It would be ideal for the team to include a representative from IT, human resources, and someone from the executive team. They should have a baseline for their security assessment. If not, then this initial one will be the baseline. Then, they will have it to compare against the data from during and after the assessment.
3. Identify risks to security.
The risk assessment team should use a scoring system to evaluate your physical security. They will also analyze the people part of the equation. After making a list of the risks, the security assessment team should prioritize the list to start with the biggest vulnerabilities in office security.
4. Create a mitigation plan.
Now that you know where the problems are, develop a plan for mitigation. You may not be able to implement everything to close all the gaps. But you can start with the higher-priority items that give you the biggest bang for your security.
5. Review the risk assessment on a regular schedule.
Security is not a one-and-done thing. It’s ongoing. Today’s security technology has come a long way from those that were considered state-of-the-art 10 years ago.
Review Office Security Processes
Another good first step in improving office security is to do a review of your current processes and procedures. How do employees, vendors, and visitors enter the building? Does your business property have multiple tenants? If so, they need to be involved and aware of the importance of security.
Some tenants may be on top of their security while others may not be. Consider forming a security council made up of the tenants. The security council is a way to educate and communicate the importance of office security to everyone.
The purpose of the security council is to collaborate on developing and revising policies for managing building access, employee turnover, deliveries, and visitor management. Every council member is responsible for communicating with their respective companies and ensuring they take action on office security.
As previously stated, processes and technology can only do so much for office security. People are a big factor. Everyone in the building needs to undergo security training. The property manager may be responsible or they may leave the responsibility to each tenant. Perhaps, consider adding a security-related clause to the contract.
Once you identify, document, and implement processes and procedures, review your technologies and how they support office security. Look for security gaps and ways to close them.
Choose the Right Office Security Technology
As you shop for the right office security technology, keep in mind that you may want your solution to be able to scale up or down. The other thing to keep in mind is that you can’t rely on one official security solution to do it all. That’s why you’ll want to explore integrated security solutions.
An integrated office security solution not only maximizes your investment but also contains multiple layers. An integrated security platform makes it possible to centralize security management, which can save both time and money.
What should be included in an integrated office security system? A system consisting of three things will close a lot of gaps. They have the power to monitor the people part of the equation. If someone fails to follow security processes, then it will be identified and addressed. Here are the three things to consider in an integrated office security solution.
1. Access control system
The job of an access control system is to manage who can enter the building. Tenants and employees will have badges that allow them to go inside the building. It’s possible for it to work with parking garage access. You can also control who has access to which part of the building. For example, you have 10 tenants. Each tenant should only have access to get into their building and their office space. They should not be able to access any of the other nine tenants’ spaces.
A huge benefit of an access control system that’s integrated into office security is that you can manage access from anywhere. If you implement video surveillance with remote monitoring, an access control system can speed up finding specific events captured in a video recording.
2. Video surveillance with remote monitoring
Traditional alarm systems are one of those things that are a relic from the past. They provide reactive security. The key is to invest in proactive security. Reactive security means they don’t respond to a situation until something has already happened. Proactive security has the ability to spot a problem before anything happens. Remote video surveillance has this capability.
What makes it proactive is that the solution pairs human intelligence with video analytics. The analytics part of the partnership monitors all the cameras for specific scenarios. When it finds a potential match, it alerts the monitoring operator who checks it out and can respond appropriately to the situation.
Video analytics do not have the ability to take the correct action. It may think a crime is about to happen when it’s an employee who enters the office building late at night because they needed to pick up something. You don’t want to risk video analytics acting on it.
The advantage of video surveillance that combines both humans and technology is a system that can more effectively monitor the entire office building as well as the parking area. If someone in the building learns about an incident that happened, then they can contact the security company. The company will have its security analysts search the video to find the footage.
Another benefit of security cameras with remote security monitoring is that the operators are not located in your office building. They’re safe in a building located elsewhere. Their lives are never at risk.
Many intruders will skip the building property if they see security cameras. Unfortunately, as mentioned before, today’s criminals are often increasingly brazen thieves. They’re not easily deterred. In this case, the operator can verbally warn them over the onsite speakers and follow that with a call to the emergency operator.
This quick action often leads to the police officers arriving at the office building before the suspects get away. You’ll have a recording of everything that transpired. This is useful as it provides proof of what happened. The video footage helps businesses avoid hard-to-win cases like false claims and liability.
3. Visitor management
When you integrate video surveillance with an access control system, it enhances the visitor management process. Visitor management technologies is a growing market as Research and Markets indicate it’s expected to grow from $1.1 billion in 2021 to $2.3 billion by 2026.
What’s causing the surge in the visitor management market? More companies are aware of security threats. They also want to track visitor management data. Visitor management converts the manual, laborious process into an automated one. It helps do away with inefficient paper-based processes.
Visitor activity data can answer the following questions. Has the visitor been to the building? How many visitors show up each day? What are the reasons for their visit? It will prepare you for any potential large crowds coming in for an event.
An integrated security system with access control, video cameras, and visitor management will address many vulnerabilities in office security. It’s a flexible solution in that you can scale up or down. It keeps everyone safe and healthy while protecting your physical assets and confirming employees follow processes. To learn about office security, check out the guide to securing your office.
Texas Private Security License Number: B14187.
