If you were able to institute absolute key control in your business, you would be about 70 percent of the way to eliminating loss in your firm. Chronically, businesses throughout Canada find pilferage and theft to be committed by an employee, a former employee, or the colleague of an employee who has acquired or been given access to an unauthorized key.
The methods used by these people to acquire keys are as varied as the reasons they devise to justify their need to have the key in the first place. Most commonly, a former employee simply did not surrender the keys they held at the time they were terminated. Beyond that, one employee “loans” their key to another, who decides to have a duplicate made “just in case.”
Compounding the problem (especially in smaller companies) is the fact that no one is ‘tracking’ the keys that have been issued. Additionally, there are far too few cases where the “need” for a key is actively reviewed. Most often, in those situations, keys are randomly distributed to whomever feels they should have one.
All of which adds up to a lack of key control. Lack of key control results in lost merchandise, equipment, money, records, and peace of mind. However, the foregoing is preventable, provided the first step: a viable, trackable and realistic key control program is implemented and followed.
The first consideration (aside from choosing the actual key control system) in developing a comprehensive and workable key control program is to determine which employees truly need to carry keys to the building.
Realistic key control begins with controlling the number of people who carry keys within a given environment. It is enhanced by restricting the access of those people carrying keys to specific areas of the property. It is fine-tuned by implementing a system that not only makes the unauthorized duplication of keys difficult, but nearly impossible.
If, as the basis of your key control program, you utilize any common and unrestricted keyway such as Kwikset, Schlage, Sargent, Corbin, or Weiser, you absolutely cannot enforce any prohibition against the unauthorized duplication of the keys you issue! Why? Because the blanks are too readily available from too many sources. Even stamping the key “Do Not Duplicate” offers no assurance that someone, somewhere, will not duplicate the key.
Consequently, the only plausible option to be reasonably certain that your key control program is going to work, is to key into one of the restricted or patented systems available. These systems are pricier than “conventional” keying systems but, they do offer you a much higher level of security.
Please Share: