Giving several employees keys to a workplace can seem like the simplest way to manage opening and closing.
Someone needs to arrive early, someone else might finish late, and holidays or sickness mean responsibility cannot always sit with one person. Providing keys to several trusted members of staff therefore feels practical and flexible.
The difficulty is that every additional key creates another point that needs to be managed.
Over time, employees change roles, people leave the business, keys are misplaced and copies may be made. What began as a straightforward way of opening the building can gradually become a security risk that is surprisingly difficult to control.
For many organisations, the question is not whether they trust their employees.
It is whether distributing responsibility for keys is still the most appropriate way to secure the premises.
When key management becomes difficult to manage
A physical key is remarkably simple, which is both its strength and its weakness.
Once issued, there is very little control over what happens to it. A business may keep a record showing who was originally given a key, but that does not necessarily confirm where every copy is several years later.
Employees leave. Responsibilities change. Keys can be lost, forgotten or passed between colleagues when someone is unavailable.
Even where organisations have good procedures in place, the more keys that circulate, the harder it becomes to maintain complete confidence over who can access the premises.
This can become particularly challenging for businesses with multiple locations or sites where several employees share responsibility for opening and closing.
A lost key creates a bigger question
When an employee reports a missing key, the immediate concern is usually whether it will be found.
The more important security question is whether anyone else could identify what it opens.
A key lost somewhere completely unrelated to the workplace may present relatively little risk. A key lost with an employee pass, company documentation or anything capable of linking it to a particular premises creates a very different situation.
The business then needs to decide whether it can accept that uncertainty or whether locks should be changed and replacement keys issued.
This is one of the fundamental limitations of traditional keys. Unlike an electronic credential, access cannot simply be withdrawn from a missing key.
Once it has gone, control has gone with it.
Opening and closing creates a people risk too
The security of the key itself is only part of the issue.
Giving an employee responsibility for a site key often means giving them responsibility for opening or closing an empty building as well.
The first person arriving may be entering the premises before other colleagues are present. The last person leaving may be securing the building alone after dark, often following the same routine at approximately the same time each day.
They may also hold information about alarm procedures or other aspects of the building’s security.
For organisations considering employee wellbeing and lone working risks, it is worth asking whether this responsibility genuinely needs to sit with a member of staff.
A professional lock and unlock service moves that responsibility to trained security personnel while allowing employees to arrive at a premises that has already been checked and opened, or leave without being responsible for securing the entire site behind them.
Professional lock and unlock creates consistency
Outsourcing opening and closing is not simply about removing keys from employees.
It creates a defined security process.
A professional security officer can attend the premises at an agreed time, follow established site procedures and check for anything unusual before the working day begins. At closing, the same structured approach can be used to ensure agreed areas and access points are secured and the appropriate security procedures are followed.
This removes much of the uncertainty that can develop when responsibility is spread between several employees.
It also means opening and closing becomes a security function rather than an additional task given to whichever member of staff happens to be first in or last out.
Keys are only one part of controlling access
Physical key management is also increasingly being considered alongside modern access control.
Electronic and biometric systems can provide organisations with greater control over who is authorised to enter particular areas. Access permissions can be managed without relying solely on physical keys, while technologies such as facial recognition can verify the individual rather than simply relying on possession of a credential.
At Copeland Group Services, this forms part of our wider Virtual Guard approach, where access control can complement CCTV monitoring and other security technologies.
That does not mean every traditional lock or key needs replacing. Physical security continues to play an important role across commercial premises.
The objective is to understand where each method is appropriate and avoid relying on a single layer of protection where the risks justify something more robust.
A small operational decision can become a security issue
Handing another employee a key rarely feels like a major security decision.
That is precisely why key management can become difficult over time.
One key becomes three. Three become ten. Employees move between sites, responsibilities change and eventually nobody is completely certain how many keys remain in circulation.
Professional keyholding and lock and unlock services provide businesses with an alternative. They allow responsibility for securing premises to be placed with trained security professionals while reducing the number of employees who need access to physical keys and security procedures.
At Copeland Group Services, our professional lock and unlock services can operate as part of a wider blended security strategy incorporating keyholding and alarm response, manned guarding, mobile patrols, Virtual Guard, access control, EcoWatch Rapid Deployment CCTV and TrakNet Technologies.
The objective is not to remove responsibility from trusted employees.
It is to make sure responsibility for security sits in the right place.
If your organisation is reviewing how premises are opened, closed or how site keys are managed, contact Copeland Group Services to discuss how professional lock and unlock services could support your business.
Photo by Mikel Mirjane on Unsplash