Tools and equipment costs add up quickly so if they go missing, it can have a big impact on your bottom line.
Tim Dimoff of SACS Consulting & Investigative Services says the business world is inundated with crime and because of that, the best thing a landscaper can do is think like a criminal when it comes to office security.
“We’re seeing a lot of the nickel-and-dime stuff and it adds up,” Dimoff says.
“How do you track who has what equipment?” he says. “Do you have documentation of what is where and being operated by whom?”
Dimoff says that can be a hassle but it can add up to thousands of dollars of protected equipment for your company.
For example, he was once working with an Ohio landscape company that called him about a recently fired employee who had been stealing equipment.
He approached the employee with a box truck, planning to recover the equipment. However, he ended up leaving with five trucks’ worth of equipment, some of which had been stolen so long ago that the company didn’t even recognize it. For years, they had just been writing the tools off as missing or broken.
Landscape business owners need to understand their company’s strengths and weaknesses are. As an example, he once visited a business, walked through the front door and spent six or seven minutes wandering the main offices before someone happened to walk out of their office and see him. The office was in need of a doorbell or buzzer system to know who was coming and going.
“If you take opportunity away, you take crime away,” Dimoff says.
You need to be proactive with all possible security breaches since no one expects it to happen to them – until it does.
“We all know we can do a better job with our businesses, but that means we have to stop and take on another task,” Dimoff says.
But the right time to conduct a security assessment is before the crime takes place. 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 says. “I hate that. Where is it supposed to happen?”
What you can do.
Have someone come in and conduct a security assessment for your company. Here’s what you can expect:
1. A physical walkthrough of the offices and shop to locate any potential risks.
2. Personal interviews with employees to get acquainted with the company culture.
3. An electronic facility review to look at the camera setup.
4. A physical blueprint of analysis of the facility.
After that, come up with permanent guidelines and procedures highlighting what should be done depending on the situation.