More recently, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in organisations shifting from traditional work settings to remote/hybrid models. While adopting a remote/hybrid working model can cause disruptions to traditional work routines/practices, many aspects remain the same for both remote and in-office businesses, a prime one being the security of your employees, data, and premises.
Between the increased risk of cyber threats, theft, and safety hazards, ensuring the security of your people, data, and office space is more essential than ever for organisations of all sizes and sectors. Since security presents a different challenge for each work environment, organisations must implement various security measures to protect their employees and prevent confidential data about clients, operations, etc., from getting into the wrong hands.
Thankfully, whether you’re a small start-up organisation or a large, established business, you can implement many security methods to fortify your employees, data, and physical premises, from the best cybersecurity practices and implementing touchless sign-in technology to using PDF tools to e-sign important documents and improving workplace safety training.
So, if you’re current workplace security practices aren’t up to scratch, we outlined several must-know ways to keep your employees, data, and physical premises safe in our article below – keep reading to find out how to safeguard the assets you need to keep propelling your business forward.
Ensure All Visitors Are Accounted For
Unlike remote/hybrid businesses, if your organisation has a physical premise, hundreds of people will likely be coming in and out at all points of the day. From employees and contractors to couriers and guests, visitors of all types will be entering and leaving the building, all of which can leave your staff, documentation, and equipment vulnerable to security threats.
To prevent visitors from posing a risk to your organisation, it is essential that you know the purpose of each visit, the length of their stay, and who is in your building. Typically, this can be managed using a visitor’s book. Yet, this process can quickly become jeopardised by false information, so most companies now utilise visitor validating procedures such as sign-in kiosks.
Using visitor validating procedures like the above makes it much more straightforward to verify the identity of visitors, track how long they’re in the building, and if they have a reason to be there. Additionally, implement sign-in kiosks with built-in cameras. When a visitor is due to sign in, it will take a photo of them or their ID card and compare it to the ID cards on the system, making it easier to accept or deny access to unknown visitors.
Another benefit of using sign-in kiosks with built-in cameras is that when the sign-in process is photographed, it provides you with evidence that can be referred to further down the line if a security risk does occur, making it easier to narrow down potential suspects and provide evidence in court (in the worst-case scenario!).
Safeguard Important Documents Using PDF Tools
Whether in a remote, hybrid, or traditional business setting, you will likely share dozens of documents between staff, contractors, and clients daily. While this is an everyday part of business, sharing documents back and forth can compromise the integrity of the files since they can quickly get into the wrong hands or be accessed by someone who wasn’t the intended recipient and be used for malicious intent.
Due to this, it is essential that you safeguard crucial business documents, files, or scanned images using relevant document protection tools such as a PDF compressor, encryption, two-factor authentication, password protection, and more. In doing so, you not only protect sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands but also against other threats like the following:
- Controlling how many duplicates of files, documents, and scanned images are made and ensuring that they can’t be if not permitted.
- It prevents sensitive information from being revealed.
- Ensures that documents aren’t lost.
- It makes it more challenging for cyber criminals to steal document data.
You can do this using online tools from Smallpdf, which can help you edit, convert, sign, compress, and merge various documents. Whether you need to compress a PDF or want to add a signature to another, their website can help you complete all these tasks and more. Consider visiting their website to learn more and see how their tools could help you increase the security of your files, documents, and images today.
Educate Staff About Workplace Security Issues
Irrespective of the sector or size of a business, the safety of employees, data, and physical premises should be one of your primary responsibilities. However, workplace safety begins with an educated workforce, highlighting the importance of educating your staff about workplace security issues they could encounter during an average workday.
Your employees should be knowledgeable about every kind of security issue, whether it’s relative to their job role or otherwise, from the ones with minimal risk to the ones that pose the most significant threat. Doing so is essential as it reduces the likelihood of workplace injuries/damages, boosts productivity, increases morale, and creates a safer work environment.
One of the best ways to educate your staff about the different kinds of workplace security risks they could encounter as part of their duties is via a learning management system (LMS). LMS staff training is more straightforward as it contains features like virtual classrooms, assignments, AI reporting, course authoring tools and much more.
With the help of these features, all the hassle of staff training is removed, and it becomes much more straightforward to track individual staff members’ progress, assign courses to specific staff members, save the time it takes to digest lessons, reduce the amount of money it takes to train staff and many other benefits.
Invest In Security Technology
When your business operates out of physical premises, it can be challenging to monitor potential security risks (because you don’t have eyes in the back of your head, after all!). But what if there was a way to understand better what’s going on throughout the office (and outside it!)? You can monitor employees and visitors using security technology like security cameras to ensure safety and security.
Placing security cameras in your office’s most populated and most vulnerable areas makes identifying thieves or employees acting dangerously more manageable. They can also be helpful if a neighbouring business has a security breach or an incident outside your building, and evidence must be provided in court.
Although you would like to hope that there will never be a reason for the cameras to be used this way, you never know what your cameras could pick up or what they could prevent in some cases. Not only are they useful for capturing security risks as they happen, but they are also helpful in deterring lousy behaviour from employees and visitors.
Providing that they are placed in prime locations, having a visible security camera is enough to deter would-be criminals so that instances of actual danger are minimised. But installing security cameras isn’t enough; you should also place clear signage around the area so that employees, contractors, couriers, and other visitors know their actions are being recorded, encouraging them to be on their best behaviour.
