Answering Reader's Questions: Business Security

I get lots of questions from my readers (many of these are addressed in the book Make Money Cleaning Offices) but let me address a few of them here-

One of my readers asks: I have a few questions. Each office has an alarm and key.

1. How do you organize everything so that you have all the codes at hand for the offices?

2. Do you just write them down in a binder and carry it with you all the time?

3. When you have employees that do the work for you, do you only ever have one copy of the entrance key or do you have a backup key?

My Answer: I always backup keys; you never know when an emergency will rise. By the way, as a side note, employees who are going to have a key sign an acknowledgment that they have been given possession of the key and, should they quit or be let go, their final check will not be given to them until the key is returned.

Alarm codes can be kept in a binder or on a mobile device, but they are ‘mis-labeled’ so that if the binder or device is found access to the building will be denied. For example, I have an account where our contact person is named Eric. The code is filed under Eric's building and has no relationship whatsoever to the corporate name of the building.

Sometimes, you have a situation where employees 'block open' a side door to take out trash, etc. In order to insure that your crew has not left a door unsecured, you may use an approach similiar to this: We provide a security 'log' at the account. The log is on a clipboard in the Janitor's closet. Each night the crew leader will:

1. Physically verify that the door was secured and note that this was done, 2. Set the alarm when leaving and note that they intend to do so, 3. IF a company employee is still in the building, get a name and note it on the clipboard. That should eliminate any possibility of your people leaving the door open.