Safeguard your business

From doorbells that double as security cameras and floodlights that detect the slightest bit of motion, we sometimes put a great deal of thought and effort into protecting our homes from break-ins.

But how protected is your business from burglary attempts or vandals?

Is your business security powerful enough to prevent predators from breaking in and stealing valuable equipment or destroying your storefront?

The best way to manage a business burglary is to prevent it in the first place – and we’ve got five valuable pieces of advice to help you ensure workplace safety, day or night.

As with most property crime, you sometimes don’t realize how vulnerable you are until disaster strikes. When it comes to your business, that can be a very expensive lesson to learn first-hand.

Before we start to cover ways that you can increase your business security after hours, it’s important to understand the kind of crime your commercial property might be subject to.

Before investing in new business security systems or implementing workplace safety procedures, you might want to start by researching the neighborhoods around your business.

Recognizing the local crime rates and statistics will help you determine which options to prioritize and might get you thinking about other ways of protecting your property, employees, and equipment.

The simplest rule of workplace safety might be the most important. Burglars are usually looking for an easy target, and there’s nothing more vulnerable than an unlocked door.

Whether you’re going home for the night or just stepping out for lunch, ensuring that you and your staff have a habit of locking the doors (and windows) behind them will help create an instant barrier between your business and potential criminal activity.

In addition to maintaining proper lock protrudes, establishing workplace safety guidelines will help protect you from a business burglary at a variety of levels.

In addition to making sure your doors and windows are locked, you might want to include which items get locked away in a safe at night, how valuables are stored out of sight at the end of the day, or any necessary business security alarming procedures.

Creating a culture of checking (and double-checking) all of these safety measures is crucial to ensure they’re active and in place when you need them most.

Installing a security system for your business is just as convenient and beneficial to workplace safety as it is to the safety of your home.

Not only will a proper business security system (including cameras and lights) scare off would-be criminals, it can help alert you and the authorities of a break-in.

You may have vetted all of your employees when you hired them, but that doesn’t mean everyone who works for you should have a key to the building.

First, it’s imperative to be cognizant of anyone at your business who has a key to the premises and to double-check periodically that all of those keys are accounted for.

Second, as a business owner, you may want to consider the harm a lost key could cause (even accidentally) and what happens when you terminate an employee who’s been granted their own set of keys to the property.

For these reasons, you may want to rethink giving out too many keys to the office as a matter of workplace safety.

Sure, you want to put your best foot forward if your business location is customer-facing, but there are other benefits to a properly manicured lawn or fresh exterior lights.

A clean, presentable property gives off the impression that someone is always around, and that alone can be a powerful way to help ward off criminals.

Similarly, making sure there are multiple lights around the premises of your business can help prevent crime after-hours. The harder it is to hide, the more likely a thief will find a different target altogether.

Just like your home, there’s almost no way to completely deter a criminal from breaking into your business property.

What you can do is put as many business security measures in place as possible to make your property seems as undesirable as possible to a criminal.

In addition to keeping all the entryways locked and premises well-lit, it’s equally as important to ensure you have the proper level of business insurance to protect your company and staff in the event of an emergency.

No matter how much security you have in place, insurance is always the best protection you can have if the unthinkable happens.