Preparing Your Business for Christmas

With the Christmas period fast approaching, businesses will be busy getting ready for a well-deserved break. However, when you and your employees are enjoying yourselves with friends and family, criminals will be hard at work.

With most commercial properties vacant for a longer period over the Christmas holidays, it's a prime time for burglars to break in. This makes the building vulnerable, and so it's important that you take a close look at your security measures in advance to ensure you're as protected as you possibly can be.

Be Aware of the Risks

If your building is going to be vacant over the holidays, make sure that you're aware of all the risks. A risk assessment will highlight any areas where you're particularly vulnerable so that you can implement measures to protect the property.

Temporary Cover

Often if the building isn't completely shutting down over Christmas, there will still be fewer staff on duty than usual. This might mean that the person who usually locks up and secures the building at the end of the day is replaced by someone else. You need to ensure that they are briefed fully on their responsibilities well in advance, such as locking internal and external doors, securing barrier gates and switching on the alarm.

Signs of Life

It is often easy to spot an empty building because of the lack or people, dark rooms, locked barrier gates and piles of post. In order to make your building less of a target, you should look at ways of bringing the property to life, such as having the lights on timers and using a contractor to clear away the post. If you have maintenance teams in over the holidays, this can be an advantage, but you should also have someone in charge, as it poses a risk if they are allowed to wander through the building unchecked.

Locking Up

Before you begin your holiday, you need to double-check that all your security measures are switched on or implemented. There's no point spending time and money on new features if they're not used. This includes shutting and locking all windows, doors and barrier gates and turning on the alarm and CCTV systems. If you spend time securing your building, it will put off the opportunist burglars who prefer an easy target.

Be Informed

Modern security systems enable you to keep an eye on the property even when no one is there. You should have someone within the business who is responsible for keeping a check on any alarm-activation reports and the CCTV system. This will ensure that any issues are picked up quickly and that your property remains secure throughout the holiday period.

If you think about security in advance rather than leaving it till the last minute, it will enable your business to be better prepared and protected. Then you and your employees can leave the building to enjoy your holidays, safe in the knowledge that it's as secure as it can be from the threat of burglars.