Theft in workplace is common. To fight this crime, management and employees need to be very careful and take preventive measures to stop it. One of the best ways to prevent theft is to restrict access to people who don't belong to the office or any particular premise in the office (especially the outsiders). Learn what steps you can take to prevent theft in office.
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2. Is it a common phenomenon?
Yes workplace theft has become more common these days. With
the growth of corporates and businesses worldwide, theft in
offices is a global phenomenon. It involves stealing of :
CASH INFORMATIONS COMPUTERS
VALUABLES IDENTITIES
3. Challenges of Prevention
Management and employees need to equip themselves to fight office crime
and protect their assets, information and valuables. Given below are some of
the biggest challenges of prevention of theft in the office:
• Ensuring that the office is closed and secure
• Installing equipment around and within the building to
monitor the premises
• Keeping personal valuables under lock and key during
office hours
• Challenging the presence of strangers within the office
premises
• Being vigilant and reporting to authorities anything
that is suspicious
• Restricting access to frequent visitors and contractors
4. Preventive measures
• Update outdated visitor management process and
floor plans
• Stringent checking of personnel who access and leave
the building
• Handling of keys, sensitive information etc to be
restricted to responsible personnel only
• ID badges to be worn by all employees , visitors and
contractors entering the building
• Keep workstations, desk drawers, systems and cubicles
locked when not in use
• Don’t leave sensitive documents or information at
common areas like printers, fax machines etc.
• Revoke access once a visitor or contractor leaves the
building
5. Evaluation and Analysis
Before putting processes for prevention in place the facility manager
needs to know the following information:
• How many people are currently within
the building?
• How many non-employees and visitors
are there in the building and where are
they currently?
• What are the sensitive areas that cannot
be accessed by visitors
6. Why a manual Visitor’s Log is a disadvantage to theft prevention
• Visitor’s logs can’t accurately tell how
many people are currently inside the
premises.
• Manually counting the number of
employees, visitors and the vendors who
are inside the building is not a feasible
option during an emergency.
• A visitor’s log can’t accurately tell if the
visitor is accessing an unauthorized part
of the building.
Visitor’s Log
7. How a Visitor Management System can help in prevention of theft
• A visitor management system can
effectively provide information on how
many people are within the
building/office
• It provides automatic report of
employees, visitors and contractors
within the premises
• Non-employees and visitors who are
within the premises can also be alerted
through phone, email and SMS as these
details would be available in the Visitor
Management System.
8. Plan for prevention
• Regular reports can be sent to remind employees to
be vigilant and take care of their workstations.
• Appropriate action should be taken in the event of a
theft so as to send a message out to others to deter
them from resorting to such crimes.
• After hours work if necessary should be planned in
advance and management should be aware of such
activity.
• Lost employee ID and access cards should be reported
immediately and steps taken to deactivate them.
• Notify visitors in advance regarding security measures
applicable to them at the time of their visit to your
premises.
9. Advantages of a Visitor Management System in prevention of workplace theft
• Provides accurate information.
• Helps to prepare ready reckoner reports
almost immediately after information is
captured by the system.
• Enhances the image of the company as a
good visitor management system is proof
that management has employee’s well-
being as a top priority.
