Construction sites should be safe from the theft in the same way that any office or company building is safe, but oftentimes they aren’t.For starters, construction sites are often outdoors where they can attract the attention of criminal passers-by, and they give off a sense of being unguarded at night – a sort of no-man’s-land between an empty lot and a fully built structure that spells “fair game” to thieves. Compounded with that is the fact that sometimes the workers themselves are the ones stealing equipment, tools or materials.
Keeping can seem like an insurmountable task, but there are common sense precautions and measurements you can take to ensure your construction site is safe from theft.
Training
If there’s one area where you want to double down on efforts, especially for big projects, it’s training. Giving your workers a thorough lesson in on-site security, including protocols for if they witness theft, is key to maintaining security. Loop your workers into your risk management strategy and make them feel as though they can be part of a solution – you’ll be surprised how far that can get you.
Lockers
Sometimes the most obvious solutions are the best. Encouraging an advanced storage system for equipment and materials, as well as for personal tools, is a great place to start. Encourage workers to mark or engrave their personal tools (if they haven’t already) and to use good quality locks on their lockers (i.e. not one of those Dollarama combination locks that anyone can crack).
ID Cards
If you’re serious about kicking workplace theft to the curb, you should require the use of ID cards, that way you can weed out intruders and restrict access of certain areas to certain qualified individuals. This is an effective, cost-effective solution for construction sites, as ID card printing machines for your business are generally inexpensive and offer a level of accountability and basic security you just can’t get elsewhere. Any smart construction site is going to stock an ID card printer somewhere in the office.
Cameras
Although cameras can’t block access like lockers or ID cards, their presence can dissuade wrongdoing, so they aren’t without their merit. Listen, everyone knows that security cameras can be expensive and potentially ineffective, but no one is saying you have to go for top-of-the-line cameras – just something that’s visible to passers-by in the site’s off-hours.
Background Checks
Your first line of defense is last on this list. Before you even have a site, when you’re still gathering a crew, make sure to do background checks and choose your team accordingly. This can get awfully complicated with sub-contractors so, as best you can, steer clear of anyone you haven’t personally (or otherwise reliably) vetted. The professional workers in your company won’t have any issue with these checks because they know that it’s for their safety and wellbeing as well.
There’s no reason theft should be a common fixture on your construction site. By implementing serious measures, like the use of ID cards, lockers and thorough background checks, you’ll make certain that there aren’t any unforeseen headaches to deal with.