Not every public space is designed with people coming and going in mind, and often measures must be put in place to maintain a steady balance between incomings and outgoings. One common misconception is that visitor management systems are surveillance provisions, but their purpose is essentially rooted in ensuring that the building environment doesn’t compromise the safety of inhabitants in any way. While at one point, businesses relied upon the age-old pen, paper and a sign in/out sheet, this doesn’t always cover enough bases nowadays. We look at how visitor management systems can help to support employee and customer safety.
Challenging And Determining Authority On A Site
The modern office space can provide some inevitable issues for those who are left with the challenge of monitoring visitors into the office and those leaving throughout the day. Even matters such as dress code can blur certainty on exactly who is permitted into professional spaces, as more relaxed approaches and a lack of uniform can make it difficult for security operatives to identify whether a person should be in the building. This uncertainty poses an obvious risk to the safety of others present, and this issue has arisen in environments across all sectors including schools, healthcare facilities, professional offices and others. To combat this vulnerability, a visitor management system might offer certain signifiers to staff regarding any unauthorized presences.
Name badges are a common approach to these circumstances, and many working environments employ an ID badge system unique for employees and for any visitors present. This makes for easy identification and reduces the likelihood of any incidents happening. Many recently constructed buildings follow new architectural standards, and so they aren’t always designed to account for visitor management safety provisions: for example, some schools are built across multiple areas on a site and having the right safety provisions to ensure that no one wanders into the site is essential.
Visual Deterrents
Not all office spaces have a human presence on their reception desks anymore, and in many cases this duty has been assigned to technology to deal with. This isn’t always the best solution though, and when this visual point of contact isn’t present straight away, visitor management is absent and your space is open to virtually any one who attempts to enter. In an environment where no one is around to control the incoming of people into a building, you are compromising safety and this isn’t advised. By ensuring that your business reception has someone ready to greet guests and employees alike, you will have a visual deterrent in place as you can physically acknowledge everyone that leaves and enters the building. These situations can arise even in professional environments, and heightened tensions could be remedied by maintaining the presence of a visual deterrent. The use of a digital visitor log could also prove beneficial, as they can provide notifications to the relevant staff member when a visitor/customer has arrived on site. This makes contact with visitors both efficient and direct, and it enables those within the building already to anticipate for exactly when any guests will be arriving.
Some establishments do rely on systems such as CCTV, but they do not always have the immediacy that a manned front desk has, making them slightly less effective in terms of deterring incidents in the moment they occur.
Visitor Management Systems In Building Emergencies
While emergencies are rare, it is always advisable to have a plan in place to deal with them efficiently should an incident arise. One useful example is that of large office buildings and shopping centers as these are often large capacity sites where safety provisions need to account for everyone in the area. Visitor management is essential in these environments, as through sophisticated systems they can provide instant safety assurance for office building officials. Many systems nowadays are cloud based, meaning that they are digital and can be accessed from anywhere among a connected network of devices.
By having peace of mind in a situation that requires quick action, sites can be cleared efficiently and safely. Necessary procedures such as roll call can be sped up by employing a digital system with updated data, and some visitor management systems can even be programmed to connect employee’s mobile devices, making safety measures more portable.
Safeguard your employees and customers by installing visitor management systems at your site today, its an extremely proactive approach to making your site as secure as possible.
