How to Prevent Theft at Your Business

More than 87% of inde­pen­dent­ly owned retail stores in Cana­da have expe­ri­enced theft, accord­ing to fig­ures from Fed­er­at­ed Insur­ance. Author­i­ties say this amounts to more than $4.6 bil­lion in stolen goods a year.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the risk of theft is some­thing that every retail busi­ness faces, no mat­ter what types of items they sell. How­ev­er, there are steps that busi­ness­es can take to dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduce that risk.

In this post, we look at the most effec­tive ways to pre­vent theft at your busi­ness.

5 effective tips for stronger business security

1) Install security cameras

Secu­ri­ty cam­eras pro­vide sev­er­al unique lay­ers of pro­tec­tion to retail busi­ness­es. Their pres­ence alone is a pow­er­ful deter­rent that helps to sig­nif­i­cant­ly curb the risk of theft. When poten­tial thieves (and your own per­son­nel) know that they are being record­ed, they are much less like­ly to com­mit a crime.

The oth­er vital ben­e­fit of busi­ness secu­ri­ty cam­eras is that they cap­ture crimes when they occur. This pro­vides valu­able evi­dence for police and can be essen­tial for insur­ance claims, too.  

2) Update your alarm system

Installing a secu­ri­ty sys­tem is crit­i­cal for retail busi­ness­es. But if you’re using a sys­tem that’s sev­er­al years old, then you’re prob­a­bly over­due for an update.

Busi­ness alarm sys­tems are espe­cial­ly impor­tant for pre­vent­ing theft when the shop is closed. If some­one attempts to enter the busi­ness while the sys­tem is armed, it trig­gers the alarm and noti­fies the mon­i­tor­ing cen­ter. The alarm itself is often enough to scare off crim­i­nals, while the mon­i­tor­ing ensures that author­i­ties will be rapid­ly dis­patched.

Today’s alarm sys­tems pro­vide more secu­ri­ty than ever, while also offer­ing advanced fea­tures like remote con­trol from your smart­phone, alarm par­ti­tions, built-in cam­eras & micro­phones, and more.

3) Secure entry points daily

Crim­i­nals don’t want to break through your shop win­dows. They’d much rather find an unse­cured entry point, like a rear base­ment door or win­dow that has been acci­den­tal­ly left unlocked.

Check­ing and secur­ing your entry points must be part of your dai­ly rou­tine, every time you close the busi­ness. Addi­tion­al­ly, dur­ing busi­ness hours, rear doors and oth­er sec­ondary entry points should remain locked on the out­side.

4) Screen your job applicants

Sta­tis­tics show that rough­ly 30% of retail theft hap­pens inter­nal­ly by busi­ness­es’ own employ­ees. And if some­one has a record of crime, chances are much high­er that they will steal again. This is why it’s so impor­tant to screen your job appli­cants with crim­i­nal back­ground checks before you hire.

5) Rethink your key management

Small busi­ness­es often make the mis­take of giv­ing out too many keys to employ­ees and nev­er chang­ing the locks. The real­i­ty for most busi­ness­es is that employ­ees con­stant­ly come and go. And if you’re not care­ful about man­ag­ing their keys, then you’re leav­ing your busi­ness at risk.

Lim­it the num­ber of employ­ees who have a key to the busi­ness, and be sure to col­lect those keys back when the employ­ees resign. For greater secu­ri­ty, con­sid­er updat­ing your locks to a key­less entry / access con­trol sys­tem. This will elim­i­nate the risk of keys being copied and also remove the need to change the locks.

Is your business at risk? Request a free audit

Find out if your busi­ness is at risk of theft and how to strength­en your secu­ri­ty. Get a free, no-oblig­a­tion audit of your busi­ness secu­ri­ty from PROTECTION PLUS.