As a business owner, your premises are vitally important to protect and secure for the health of your company. They provide a safe place for your employees to work and house all of your expensive equipment.
With all of this in mind, you’re likely to have intruder alarms fitted and maybe even security guarding during busy periods for your peace of mind.
With the installation of an intruder alarm, you’ll have appointed keyholders in your business tasked with responding in case anything is triggered. Alarms can be triggered at the most inconvenient of times, and sometimes by total accident, yet they still need to be attended to and switched off.
Creatures as harmless as cats could cause an alert, and your employees would still need to brave performing a physical check on your premises. Here is the best practice you can take to keyholding and alarm response – and how to protect your business.
Be Selective With Keyholders
Being a keyholder is a position of serious responsibility, and should only be left to more senior employees. Keyholders also really should live near your premises to be able to respond to alarms as quickly as possible.
You’re placing a lot of trust in employees with the ability to access your premises at any point, so make sure that your chosen few recognise their responsibility and take it seriously.
You will have to consider training your keyholders for the potential event of a triggered alarm and offer some incentive to take on the responsibility. This could be a raise in salary, or you may negotiate payment for the petrol and the hours your employee spends attending your property.
Consider a Professional Team
Suppose you don’t believe that any of your employees can be put in the position of keyholding authority. In that case, you may decide to hire a company for professional keyholding and alarm response. There are serious upsides to this approach since your response team will be qualified over your employees!
Alarm response can be a scary and anxiety-inducing experience, and professionals are better equipped to search your grounds and provide statements to the police when necessary.
While professional keyholders may seem like an unnecessary expense, your business employees aren’t going to be able to respond as sensibly and efficiently. The stress of alarm response could also take a toll on unqualified staff, leaving them feeling vulnerable at work and less productive.
It may be more cost-efficient to take keyholding responsibilities elsewhere, rather than spending resources trying to train your staff in areas of security that they’re otherwise oblivious to.
Regularly Service Your Alarm
Lastly, you want to be certain that your intruder alarm is regularly serviced. Considering keyholders and alarm response is useless if your system won’t trigger!
The last thing you want is for a simple electrical fault to mean that your burglar alarm isn’t functional, and the money you’ve spent on security measures has been wasted. Especially when testing your alarms is straightforward, and issues are possible to fix!
With a proven functional intruder alarm and professional keyholders, your insurance premiums may reduce, and you could save money on your business premises in the long run. Even if your business is seasonal and your property is occasionally vacant, keyholding and alarm response services are invaluable alongside void property inspections to ensure your expensive equipment is safe.
For further advice on keeping your business premises safe and secure with keyholding services and alarm response, please feel free to contact us at Clear Watch Security with your questions. We’d be more than happy to advise a security strategy tailored for your business.
