9 Tips to keep your Business safe over Christmas

It’s the time of year that a lot of business owners look forward to; a well-deserved break. It may even be the first decent downtime that you’ve had away from your business all year.

Before you close-up shop and enjoy the festive season, here are 9 tips to ensure your business is properly protected over the holiday period.

1. Conduct a Security System check.
Check your CCTV cameras and make sure the camera positioning is capturing the necessary areas of your business and the images are clear. Cobwebs or dust can be a cause for grainy or blurred footage.  Check your Cameras are recording.  There’s nothing worse than playing back footage and it isn’t clear, or worse still, it didn’t record.

2. Notify your Security Monitoring Company
Advise your monitoring company of your holiday trading hours and make sure their emergency contact list is up to date so they can be sure they are contacting the right people if a situation occurs.

3. Arm your Access Control System
If your business uses an access control system, make sure this is armed so it will over-ride any scheduled free access.  By not doing so, you could potentially and unknowingly be leaving your business unlocked for anyone.

4. Notify your Landlord and Neighbours
If renting your space, advise your landlord if no-one will be on-site and let your neighbouring businesses know so they keep an eye out if they are working through. We all need to look out for one another and a good relationship with our neighbours has many benefits.

5. Christmas Decor Obstructions
Check Christmas decor is not obstructing security cameras or movement won’t set off your alarm. The last thing you want while you’re on holiday is a call-out to a false alarm.

6. Keep your business well lit.
A workplace that looks occupied becomes a deterrent to thieves. With the use of timers, you can set some lights to turn on and off at set times or create a ‘holiday’ mode through your control system to do the same.

7. Cybersecurity
Protecting your devices is just as important. Turn off and unplug computers, photocopiers, and coffee machines. This not only protects your equipment from a  power surge but also potential cybersecurity attacks.

8. Don’t leave cash onsite
In the unfortunate event of theft, naturally, we want the least amount of impact, and leaving cash on-site is sure to be a hit to hip pocket.

9. Re-direct Mail and deliveries to an alternate drop off point
Piling up mail and parcels is a sure-fire way to let anyone know that your premises are unattended, therefore more attractive to criminals. Either have the post office hold your mail or have someone collect it for you regularly.

Most importantly, enjoy this time away, however you may spend it. Relax, recharge, and toast the end of 2020, you deserve it.