Combating workplace threats require a modern, integrated approach to security

Protecting the physical workplace has always been essential for businesses. However, as technology advances and threats continually evolve, ensuring safety and security has become increasingly complex. In fact, recent data from Envoy's latest survey indicates that 68% of organizations have faced at least one physical security incident in the last year.

To maintain a safe and secure workplace, companies must adapt their security strategies. In this blog post, we’ll discuss how organizations can safeguard their workplace against the threats impacting today’s businesses by leveraging a streamlined workplace solution. 

Streamlining security takes work, but it also comes with many benefits

To secure the physical workplace effectively, businesses must integrate their safety and security measures while eliminating outdated and complex policies. A strategic way of doing this is by implementing a visitor management system (VMS), which enables companies to: 

• Leverage automation to do much of the heavy lifting, reducing human error
• Simplify security procedures to make them clear and consistent
• Bring processes and procedures together in a single, integrated solution
• Bolster security with custom access levels by employee or visitor type
• Gain visibility into workplace occupation at a global and location level

With the right system in place, companies will have more agility to stay on top of evolving workplace threats, safeguarding their people, property, and ideas. 

Gain visibility into the areas of the workplace that matter most

In an overwhelming security landscape, it can be difficult for security teams to know what to focus on to adequately protect the workplace and everyone who enters it. By utilizing a VMS, companies gain comprehensive visibility over essential security aspects within the workplace. This includes monitoring of workplace visitors, oversight of facilities and protection management, and adherence to emergency and safety protocols. We’ll touch on each of these areas below.

Workplace visitors

A VMS provides a crucial layer of security by enabling leaders to stay on top of who’s in the workplace at all times. They’ll be able to track each guest’s contact information, host, and reason for visit, and ensure only guests who meet their specific criteria are allowed onsite. 

A modern also provides valuable insights on visitor foot traffic, empowering organizations to make smarter security staffing decisions to keep their locations safe and secure. To reap these benefits, organizations need to leverage a VMS that makes it easy for approved admins to access this data. However, according to Envoy’s latest survey, only 36% of organizations track foot traffic across their locations using their VMS, highlighting a huge gap in security.

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Facilities and protection management 

As the return-to-office movement continues to gain momentum, many businesses have placed greater emphasis on securing their physical environment. To keep everything—and everyone— secure as onsite numbers grow, leaders need the right level of visibility. 

Envoy’s survey shows that, moving forward, 44% of organizations want to enhance their physical security. To do that, leaders need to invest in systems that can manage the security of their physical infrastructure. This includes access control, block lists, and ID verification. By bringing all of these security measures into a single, streamlined solution, leaders can ensure a comprehensive and efficient approach to safeguarding their physical environment.

‍Emergency and safety protocols

In emergencies, immediate response and notification are critical for businesses. They need to track onsite occupants, communicate efficiently, and coordinate emergency responses. Integrating emergency response procedures into a VMS helps organizations to improve their ability to respond effectively during critical incidents.

Envoy’s survey reveals that roughly half of companies use some form of emergency notifications, with SMS (56%) and email (55%) being the most common methods. Notably, almost half of companies do not use any emergency notifications, leaving room for improvement for these organizations.

The challenge of maintaining effective emergency response protocols becomes more complex in flexible and hybrid workplaces, where only 39% of companies have distinct emergency notification workflows for onsite and remote employees. With the growing popularity of flexible work arrangements and increased global events like mass shootings and climate change, 32% of organizations plan to prioritize improving their emergency response protocols in the coming year.

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Streamlining physical safety and security practices is the first step every business must take to enhance their organization's security posture. As the threat landscape continues to grow more complex, this becomes imperative for safeguarding the workplace and its occupants. The good news is, by implementing an integrated solution, companies can efficiently adapt to these evolving challenges and ensure the safety and security of their people and premises.

Ready to uplevel your company’s safety and security? Download our latest report, https://envoy.com/ebooks/workplace-security-report