A Business Alarm can Help Stop Employee Theft

Are your employees stealing from you? A recent study reveals that 75%, 3 out of 4 employees have admitted to stealing from their employer at least once, so chances are, yes.

Employees are one of your business’s most valuable assets. However, their dishonesty can be costly and have a devastating effect on your business. Two-thirds of all US-based small businesses fall victim to employee theft, according to employee fraud stats, and account for the loss of approximately 5% of their revenue each year.  Internal theft from employees includes everything from taking inventory to misappropriation commonly  known as “permanently borrowing” company property to billing for time and services not rendered. In fact, time theft schemes affect approximately 75% of all US-based businesses.

Perhaps you have an alarm system to protect your business from external theft caused by burglary, but what about losses caused by internal theft from employees? Can your alarm system help you protect against this type of loss? Yes, it can, by using one of the most common, but unfortunately, most underutilized features existing in most alarm systems, individual user codes.

How can individual user codes with your security alarm system help protect your business against loss from internal theft?

Individual user codes allow you to monitor who, when, and even how long a specific individual accessed your business site by recording and reporting the alarm’s history of being armed and disarmed. This information can be provided periodically in a report form from your alarm company or immediately as a notification on your smartphone through an application such as the Total Connect App from Resideo.

When employees are aware that an alarm system is tracking their coming and goings, they are a lot less likely to return after hours to steal property or “borrow” office equipment, tools, or supplies. Do you have an outside cleaning company that you pay to clean your office space after hours? Have you ever wondered if they’re actually coming in to clean every night just as you’ve contracted them to do? Issuing an individual user code to your cleaning company gives you the ability to confirm if they are and know if they’re not.

No one enjoys having to terminate an employee, and it’s never a good situation when things end on a sour note, and the now-former employee seems vengeful.

Individual alarm user codes provide access control to your business, giving you the ability to add and delete user codes as you hire and terminate employees. Removing a former employee’s user code prevents them from returning and having free access to your business location after hours without detection, even if they had kept or copied a key.

With nearly fifty years in the security business, we have seen too many instances of businesses using a single common user code for all employees. Unfortunately, in this situation, unless the single user code is changed every time a person leaves your employ (which rarely if ever happens.), the terminated individual can still access your business unbeknownst to you and without setting off your alarm. Not a good situation to be in when you’re dealing with a disgruntled now-former employee.

Perhaps your business is a doctor’s medical office, and you want to limit your staff’s access to being able to “help” themselves to medications or medical supplies. Or maybe your business is an auto repair shop, and you want to limit your mechanic’s access to come in on the weekend and run their own “repair shop” using your tools and facility fixing vehicles for their friends and family.

Scheduling limited access of individual user codes gives you the ability to do so. A professionally installed commercial-grade alarm system, such as one manufactured by Resideo, provides businesses with the ability to limit employee’s access to your facility during specific days and times.

Scheduling an individual’s user code to be disabled during a set time will keep them from being able to arm or disarm your business’s alarm system during that time period. Employees are prevented from using their alarm user code to access your business after-hours or on weekends.

Individual user codes are not hard to set up or maintain. Alarm user codes can be easily added, deleted, and managed remotely by your alarm company, or they can be managed by you using your alarm’s keypad or on your smartphone using an alarm application such as the Resideo Total Connect App. You’ve invested in an alarm system to protect your business and secure its assets from external theft such as burglary, get the most from your investment and fully utilize your alarm system to protect your business from the thieves inside. 

Call your alarm company today and ask how you can set up individual alarm user codes for all of your employees. If you’re looking to install an alarm system to protect your Temecula Valley business we can provide business security solutions designed to meet your business’s specific needs.