While the majority of your employees may be upstanding citizens, the biggest threat to your security is an insider. In fact, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports that 75 percent of all employees will steal from the companies they work for at least once in their career. So, how do you protect your systems from employee theft?
In order to keep your security systems safe, it’s best to be proactive, identify the ways employees could interfere and put measures in place to protect them. Let’s start with five of the most common kinds of employee interference and how to mitigate them.
Tampering with cameras
The temptation to steal may be strong for some employees, especially if your business deals with high-value items. Visible security cameras may not always deter a stealing employee.
Strategic camera placement can help you minimize the opportunity for someone to get away with disabling your cameras. Work with a professional security company to install both visible and hidden cameras. And only let a few trusted individuals in the company know about the hidden ones.
Intercepting the video feed
Another way that an employee could disrupt your security system is by erasing video evidence of the crime. If your video feed is housed in an onsite server or DVR, then a guilty employee could intercept the feed before you have a chance to review it.
If you currently use a CCTV security system, it is important to keep the data in a secure room with limited access. Alternatively, switching to IP camera hosting allows you to access your video feeds from anywhere at any time – in real-time or after an incident has occurred. All you need is a web-enabled computer or mobile device to see what is going on at your business.
Taking advantage of blind spots
If any employee plans to steal from you, then odds are good that they do their homework. And one such way is by observing what your cameras pick up – and what they don’t. If there are blind spots of obstructions that prevent you from seeing everything that goes on in your store, savvy criminals will find them. Work with your security company to get the most out of your cameras and reduce the risk or potential blind spots.
Cutting the system power
Eliminating the power source could potentially kill any chances of recording an incident at your place of business. However, if your system is equipped with an equipment monitoring feature, then you’ll know right away if the system has been tampered with.
Employee complacency
Even if an employee has no intention to steal from you, if complacency kicks in, you still run the risk of employee interference with your security system. If the employee’s job is to maintain the equipment or monitor the feed, and they fail to do so, then your company is left vulnerable.
At Pro-Vigil, we offer a service called Virtual Security Guard. Instead of one employee sitting in a room at your place of business and hopefully paying attention to the feed, virtual security guards are live humans in a remote location, supervised, and watching your place of business around the clock.
For more information about Pro-Vigil Security or to get a free quote, contact us online.
