Protecting your Empty Facility

By John Krumme, CPP, Cam-Dex Security Corp.

These are unprecedented times globally, as businesses transition as many employees as possible to work from home in an attempt to stop the spread of COVID-19. As a result of this shift, many once bustling facilities – schools, corporate offices and places of worship – are now seeing limited visitors, if any at all.

Even though many facilities are now nearly empty or in limited use, security remains a top priority to protect assets and those employees who may need to venture in from time to time to retrieve important files. With this in mind, if your frequency of visitors has significantly changed, you should also review your security system to ensure a few measures are in place.

Revoking access privileges of employees may be a little extreme, in order to keep them from entering a facility once business operations move to remote operations. However, if your building has multiple unlock schedules on its doors to enable employees or customers to enter at a set time in the morning, it’s time to review that schedule and make the necessary adjustments to ensure the building remains secure at all times.

Many places of worship, for example, have moved away from being open 24/7 and have implemented an access control system that will automatically unlock the doors before Sunday worship, or before committee meetings during the week. These facilities can have a dozen or more automatic unlock schedules as part of its access control system. The same can be said for buildings on a college or corporate campus, for example.

The majority of surveillance systems installed today provide the ability to remotely review video footage – keeping tabs on employees, customers and deliveries. However, now is an ideal time to review whether your facility is taking full advantage of the remote monitoring capabilities your surveillance system has to offer.

If you have not done so yet, look into how you can remotely access your surveillance system, either through a mobile app or desktop option. Many manufacturers offer this capability as part of the system, or for a small monthly fee.

Being able to access your surveillance system remotely will enable you to periodically check your parking lot for vehicles left behind for a long period of times. If you receive an alert that someone has entered the building through the access control system, remote surveillance will also enable you to view the interior of the building to see if the person coming in is an employee to retrieve files, a cleaning person, or someone who is not authorized to enter at a specific time.

Security remains a top priority, even when a facility is empty. Investing time today to review the systems you have in place, adjust unlock schedules, and leverage remote surveillance capabilities, will help ensure your building remains secure and ready for occupancy in the near future.