While we often talk about home burglaries, working places have their share of break-ins too. And while the feeling of home break-ins is intense due to the family’s safety and kind of sentimental just by thinking that intruders have invaded our personal sphere and touched our private things, office burglaries leave a quite different bitter taste.
At work, it all has to do with things which make our business flow and put food on our table. Burglaries create a feeling that important information about the company’s customers or the business are out in the open. There’s a sinking feeling in the stomach just by thinking that a project we have worked on for months may have been destroyed, valuable items may be taken, the safety of the employees and visitors may have been put at stake.
But once the milk is spilled, there’s no use crying over it. Bad is done and now it’s time to do some good to restore office security and, once again, create a safe environment before we even start counting our losses. Let’s take action now and we’ll tell you what we mean in the process.
Fix the door
Focus on the door repair, before anything else. Yes, of course, you first need to call the policy, the insurance company, employees and anyone else involved in your business – generally speaking, follow the protocol.
But when it comes to restoring the security of the office, you need to start from the most vulnerable part of the property – the break-in point. This is often a door – the main entrance, the side door, the panic door. It may even be a window. Whatever the entry point, it wasn’t resistant enough to protect your office. So, you need to consider if it must be repaired or must be replaced. Naturally, if it’s extensively damaged, it gives you the chance to get a new window/door – one that will be much more durable and resistant.
Change the locks
While you are looking into what to do with the door, start thinking about buying new high security locks. Even if the broken-into-point is inside the building, it gave access to the intruders.
Change locks. After all, the usual break-in methods may cause lock damage. Even if the lock is not destroyed though, it didn’t protect. So, time to make changes with a deadbolt installation.
Create an internal safe environment
If this is a big office, it likely has many rooms. And while not all rooms/areas have the exact same security requirements, they need to have good new locks. Some areas, where you keep valuables and things that must remain fully protected at all times, should have even better locks.
Go beyond the doors. After all, documents and valuables are not left exposed on desks but have their place in file cabinets and drawers. Make sure all pieces of furniture in your office lock too.
Do some detective work
Now, if the door locks are not damaged, that’s even worse news. You see, no matter how devastating office break-ins are, you can put this bad incident easier behind you if you know that someone broke the lock/door and gained entry to your working space. That’s compared to finding out that the office has been burglarized but there’s no lock damage – pure evidence that someone gained access to your keys or locking system.
Is this a master key system? In this case, you start suspecting even employees or customers, people who may have access to some rooms. People who may have found out your password. To restore security – from this perspective, change all codes, rekey locks, make new keys and think very hard before giving access to co-workers.
Take quick steps
The urgency of this situation is that you need to take very fast steps. And not only for the reason you likely suspect – to restore office security. That too, of course, but also to avoid a repeat break-in – a usual habit of burglars. They hit a place and return in a short term to hit the same place again, knowing the vulnerabilities and counting that you haven’t taken action just yet. Prove them wrong. Let them be caught off guard.