The Locksmith Industry's Best Practices For Commercial Building Access Control Systems
If your company is expanding and will soon be moving into a new building, then now is the right time for you to become familiar with the commercial locksmith industry's best practices for utilizing your future access control system.
Here are some guidelines for you to follow to get you started with drafting your business's building access policy:
Require One Key Card Per Employee
Each employee of your business should have their own access key card for your building. Sharing of key cards and lending them to vendors should be strictly prohibited. To be effective, this policy should be strongly enforced.
Just like when employees share computer passwords, sharing of key cards puts you in the unfortunate position of not knowing for sure who an offending party was when there is a problem. When everyone has their own card, you can easily check the access log and definitively see who was accessing specific areas of your building.
Providing Vendor Access
To provide service personnel and vendors reasonable access to your building, you should require them to sign a log and you should issue them their own temporary key card with access to the areas necessary to complete their work. While you may be tempted to use one key for all vendors, this can be problematic if the key is not returned or there is a problem later down the road and you don't know who used the key at what time.
Auditing Your System for Added Security
Once your new building is in operation, you should plan to audit your access control system each month for:
- lost keys
- stolen keys
- non-returned keys from vendors
Sometimes employees are fired or quit and their managers don't remember to collect their keys. Other times an employee resigns and never returns their key cards to the building out of spite. A monthly audit of your system will help you to cull these keys and remove their access.
When conducting your review, you should also look at the access log to see if anyone has a record of unusual access into the building, for instance at night or on weekends. While this does not always signal a problem, it definitely deserves some further investigation.
Conclusion
An access control system is only as secure as your policy for its utilization. Having a policy based upon industry best practices will keep your building safe while providing necessary access to your staff. By working with a licensed commercial locksmith in your area (such as High Security Locksmith), you can select the right access control system to meet the individual needs of your business.