Securing your company

Business security was the focus of the Ohio Landscape Association’s annual meeting on Thursday, Nov. 17.

Tim Dimoff, of SACS Consulting & Investigative Services spoke on the topic of security and possible vulnerabilities in landscape companies. He also looked at some of the standard things landscape contractors should be doing to proactively prevent security breaches at their companies.

Dimoff said the business word is inundated with crime, and because of that, the best thing a landscaper can do is think how a criminal thinks when it comes to office security.

As an example, he said he once visited a business, walked through the front door and walked around the main offices for six or seven minutes before someone happened to walk out of their office and see him.

He said a landscape business owner needs to understand what his company’s strengths and weaknesses are – in this case, having no kind of doorbell or system to buzz someone in – so he knows what needs to be done.

“If you take opportunity away, you take crime away,” he said.

Although Dimoff has experience working with companies in different industries, he said the landscape industry is very attractive to criminals, both internal and external. Any labor-intensive business, especially one with large equipment, has a higher chance of being a victim of criminal activity, he said.

“We’re seeing a lot of the nickel-and-dime-stuff and it adds up,” he said. He described an Ohio landscape company that called him about a recently-fired employee they knew had stolen equipment from them prior to his termination. 

Dimoff approached the employee with a box truck, planning to get back the equipment and fit it in the truck. However, he ended up leaving with five box truck’s worth, and some of the equipment had been stolen so long ago, the company didn’t recognize it. For years they had just been writing the equipment and tools off as missing or broken.

“How do you track who has what equipment?” he said. Do you have documentation of what is where and being operated by whom? Dimoff said that can be a hassle but it can add up to thousands of dollars of protected equipment for your company.

Another security risk with that story was the employee, who acted hostile upon termination.

Dimoff said his team is seeing this trend of disgruntled ex-employees growing. He said people are more negative, aggressive and angry, and this can directly affect you if you fire an employee who feels this way.

“We’re starting to see abnormal become the norm,” he said. When you fire an employee, any threats they make to you should always be taken seriously, and proper preparations for increased security at your place of work should be taken. Hire extra security if need be, and make sure any codes or keys the ex-employee has access to are changed.

Dimoff said you need to be proactive with all threats and security breach possibilities, because no one expects it to happen to them; until it does.

“We all know we can do a better job with our businesses,” he said, “but that means we have to stop and take on another (task).”

However, he said the proper time to conduct a security assessment is before the crime takes place, so while that extra task may seem frivolous when you have so much on your plate, it’s better to have a plan and not need it, than need it and not have it. 

“Everyone I interview says it wasn’t supposed to happen here,” Dimoff said. “I hate that. Where is it supposed to happen?”

Have someone come in and conduct a security assessment for your company. When they come, they have a four-step process they will do for your company:

1. They’ll do a physical walkthrough of the offices and shop to locate any potential risks
2. They’ll conduct personal interviews with employees to get acquainted with the company culture. 
3. They’ll do an electronic facility review to look at your camera set up.
4. Finally, they’ll do a physical blueprint analysis of the facility.

After that, come up with permanent guidelines and procedures highlighting what should be done depending on what situation, whether it’s a robbery, an active shooter or a fire. Make sure all employees know what they should do if something happens.

“We’re so busy, we’re working so hard and long, we’re beat up, and then all of a sudden someone wants to come in and complain about ‘Bob,’” Dimoff said, describing an employee disagreement that could end up escalating if it’s not addressed early on. “We manage by the size of the fire.”

If this still seems like too much work for something you don’t think will happen at your company, Dimoff said to approach it from a different angle.

According to Dimoff, two out of every five small businesses that get hit by a major disaster never reopen. This statistic isn’t because they didn’t have insurance; it’s because the company wasn’t prepared to deal with what happened.
“Day in and day out, you’ve got to use these procedures that OSHA gives you,” he said. “Why aren’t we as stringent and consistent in our security procedures?”