Use Home Security Strategies to Protect Your Office

If you are an American homeowner, you have probably given a lot of thought to how to keep your family safe inside of your house. You have put up a fence, installed a home security system, and you make sure to lock your doors and close your windows at night and when you leave the house. But unless you work for a bank, you may not be quite as vigilant about these security measures when you are at the office. When you work with a number of people, even when it is your own business, this environment creates a false sense of security. It seems like no one would be able to try something like a robbery because there are simply too many people in the office: too many variables, too many moving parts to control over the course of the crime. But, just like with home security issues, all it takes is one psychopath or drugged-up meth addict to try something, and all of the sudden your office is facing financial damages from the loss of property, and emotional damages from the loss of a sense of safety and security after the event is over. Not worth it.

The moral of the story is that you need to start planning for the potential for events like this to occur, so that you are not taken by surprise. What's more, in additional to the cash-based incentives for people to commit crimes in offices - there is often a lot of electronic equipment lying around, not to mention cash boxes, and the smart phones and wallets of every single employee in the building - businesses these days face additional risks. Office shootings by disgruntled employees are rare, but they are not unheard of. This is the kind of thing that an office manager or a business owner really should plan for.

So how does one go about protecting the workplace? It is easier than you think, luckily. The general idea is that you want to safeguard the office like you would the home. The first step is to get an alarm system set up. Often, the same companies that will install your home alarm will do the office one, too. There might be different features that are specifically aimed at the office environment, however, like individualizing pass codes so that multiple people can activate and deactivate the alarm as the situation requires. You can also have video cameras installed, a fact that you might want to post outside and inside of the building on warning signs. If your office is big enough, you could even consider hiring a security guard to monitor them in real time, so that if a shady character enters the premises, you will not be taken by surprise.

Another home security tip that comes in handy when it comes to protecting your business is to have a specific plan should an emergency occur. By having a protocol, specified to individual risks like robbery versus shooting, etc., if the unfortunate event occurs, people will have steps to follow and there will be less room for hysterical panic.