Maggie Evans 
If you’re managing a business or organization, you have a thousand things to manage, and visitor access control may not be at the front of your mind. However, visitor access control shouldn't be overlooked. Failing in this area can not only create administration nightmares, but it also gives rise to security risks.
However, with the proper implementation of an effective Visitor Management Access Control system, you can ensure corporate security while reducing the administrative burden on your organization.
What Exactly is Visitor Access Control?
Visitor access control, also known as visitor management systems, is all about how you manage authorized (and unauthorized) visitors to your site. Your visitors may be clients, family members of your staff, delivery people, or temporary workers. Traditional visitor access control systems are no longer sufficient in the face of modern security threats, since pen and paper alone cannot ensure high-end security of your site and assets. The latest electronic and AI-based visitor management access control tools eliminate most security vulnerabilities to secure not only your assets and but also your most important assets – your people.
Visitor Access Control Amid COVID-19
Avoiding physical contact has become a top priority these days in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The demand for smart technologies facilitating contactless visitor management is on the rise. For example, an RFID one-time visitor pass lets management regulate the number of visitors allowed on site at any given time. And that’s just the start.
Here are the best practices for visitor access control you should implement in 2021.
Integrate with your Security System
There is no doubt that visitor management is effective on its own but when you integrate this system with existing security, this takes things to the next level. This way, you can make the most of access control, visitor authentication, and smart access to critical checkpoints. Moreover, integrating your security system with visitor management will eliminate any possible conflict between the two systems.
Train Your Staff for Emergency Evacuation
If your company does not have a formal emergency evacuation procedure, you need tochange this asap. It is critical that you train your staff to respond correctly in a real-life situation while managing to keep visitors calm as possible. Drills are one thing, but a real-life situation is different and you must prepare your staff for such unexpected events to avoid panic and potentially devastating losses.
Collect Information about your Visitors
This is important to ensure the security of your business. You should consistently collect the following data about all your visitors:
- Full Name
- Contact of the visitor
- Emergency contact
- Temperature check (this should be mandatory during the COVID-19 pandemic)
- Reason for visit/who they are visiting
- Date
- Time
- Anticipated stay (expected departure)
- ID or name of the staff member assigned to the visitor
How Do you Handle Visitor Exits?
Managing incoming visitors is not the only purpose of visitor access control. The risk doubles when visitors leave the premises since this is the most vulnerable time when security could be compromised. A smart vehicle access control system is an essential part of this picture. You should set up a separate exit path for all visitors to make monitoring even easier.
Centralised Visitor Management
With a centralised visitor management system, monitoring becomes more efficient. There is no need to take additional measures of uploading and modifying visitors’ information through multiple security tools. It also helps things to move fast instead of keeping the visitors waiting for the system’s response at different checkpoints.
Moreover, a fully integrated system does not require multiple reports. It also saves a lot of space in your database letting the IT department manage the whole system with less storage. Additionally, securing visitors’ personal information becomes easier when it is kept in one place instead of spreading it across different systems, each with its own database.
Analyse Visitor Management Access Control Performance
Setting up and implementing your visitor management access control system is not the end of the process. Technology moves at a fast pace and you must keep up with the latest developments, at least enough that your security is not compromised. Analysis of your visitor access control systems will help you to identify weak points and address them as quickly as possible.
Wrapping Up
We are living through unprecedented times and hopefully, we have faced the worst of it. However, with challenges come learning opportunities and one of these lessons is that it is critical to prepare for the unexpected. Today, security risks do not only involve risk to your property or assets but also threats to visitors’ lives if proper care is not taken. The question is, what’s next? We can never know what the future will bring, but we can minimize our risk with a comprehensive visitor management access control system.
