You spend significant time, money and effort making sure that your home is well secured- so why wouldn’t you do the same for your business? Your business is your life, your livelihood and you have an awful lot to lose. If you’ve been lax with security and safety up until this point, here are a few ways you could make improvements and protect yourself.
Security Outside of the Office
Offices tend to be targeted by criminals, as they know that they’re full of valuable items including everything from equipment to cash. Even data such as customer details can be stolen and sold on for identity fraud purposes. On top of this, most offices are empty outside of office hours meaning they can be in and out with less risk of being caught. To get around this, you need to make sure your office security is up to scratch. First thing first, a burglar alarm will work wonders. Most thieves won’t stick around if an alarm goes off, and some won’t even attempt a break in if they can see you have a system in place. CCTV is another great investment; again it can act as a deterrent and also be used as evidence if needed. Go with a high-quality system that has clear picture even at night. Good lighting around your premises can prevent burglaries and also improve the quality of your CCTV footage. If you’re on the ground floor or a lower floor of office blocks, then window shutters can be well worth investing in. You can get sliding lockable ones which pull across and lock into place at night, but during the day retract back so you can’t see them- the best of both worlds. That way, you have a physical barrier at your windows to stop burglars smashing the window and climbing in.
Security Inside The Office
As well as making sure the outside of your building as secure as possible, it needs to be secure inside too. Purchase a sturdy, commercial safe which is hidden out of sight and bolted down. While you should never leave too many valuables or too much cash overnight, a sturdy safe can help to keep your assets safe in between cash collections. Keep the combination safe and trust it only to very senior staff members. ID tags for visitors and workers is another way you can keep the office secure; you can buy wholesale lanyards and have some identification tags or even have locks installed which can only be opened via card. Have any visitors or guests sign in via reception so that no unauthorised persons are walking around.
Avoid Fraud
The thing about fraud and theft is that it isn’t always committed by criminals outside of your business, it can actually come about from your very own employees. You need to make sure you’re hiring only the most trustworthy staff; you can do this by running background checks and follow up on references. It can be helpful to get to know your staff on a personal level and be aware of any potential signs that fraud could be committed. Have an anonymous reporting system put in place, that way if anything that looks suspicious it can be reported by other workers without fear of backlash. Another thing that lots of businesses can do to help stop fraud is to switch around peoples roles within the company. When another employee takes over the work of another, it’s easy for them to spot if something doesn’t look quite right.
Protect Against Hackers
As well as protecting your business in a physical sense, you should be sure to protect it online too. After all, much of our businesses these days are run online, and so if it’s compromised on here you still have a significant amount to lose. Start by protecting your data; you can do this by backing up to the cloud. Here you have no physical files that can be stolen or damaged; the information is all encrypted for safety and stored on servers. When you backup to hard drives or just to your computers if anything happens to these you then lose your data. Fire, theft or a flood could all end up wiping out your hardware causing you to lose important information stored on it. When you backup to the cloud, it also means that if you have employees who work remotely, they’re able to easily access the information they need. This is because it’s stored online instead of than on a physical computer in the office. You need the correct infrastructure in place as well as it being adequately protected, so call in the experts if this is something you want to utilize in your company. If you’re still living in the dark ages with data storage, this is one important area to make a change.
Use Strong Passwords
This might seem simple but it’s so easy to overlook. All of your business accounts should be secured with complex passwords. Thieves who are looking to remotely target companies have been known to gain access due to passwords that are easily guessed, so this is one area not to overlook. Use a mixture of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and punctuation need to be used for the best protection.
Get Insured
Finally, despite trying your best to keep your business safe, something may still go wrong and your physical or online business may be compromised. For this reason, you need to get insured to give you peace of mind. If something is stolen, having insurance means it will be replaced and won’t leave you out of pocket. Public liability insurance and employee liability insurance also ensures that if something happens to the public or your workers, you won’t end up paying out for a lawsuit and potentially going bankrupt.
What steps have you taken to ensure your business stays safe and secure? Have you ever been targeted by theft, fraud or criminal damage?
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