How to Help Your Employees Get More Serious About Security

To protect your office-based business from crime, you may have taken some basic measures, such as hiring private security, using a secure network for computing, and installing a security system to protect the premises. However, your business could still have a weak link: your employees. If you are worried that your employees are not taking company security as seriously as they should be, there are some steps you can take to increase their awareness and motivation.

1. Have your security company provide interactive seminars.

One of the reasons why employees may not take security seriously is because they may not fully understand the prevalence of white collar crime. Your hired security company will have plenty of information to offer about how this crime can and will affect them if security measures are not fully heeded. For example, not shredding documents or posting about company statistics on personal blogs can lead to identity theft or hackers trying to access company documents through "harmless" information accessed on the web.

Have your security company provide real life examples of how this can happen. For example, if an employee posts about where they work and happens to mention a company's financial resources, that company can then become a target for insider trading schemes or investment fraud. The more "inside" information available about a company on the web, the more susceptible the company is to white-collar criminals.

Frequent seminars on company policy, non-disclosure agreements, and other aspects of company security will make employees aware of what is expected at the workplace. These seminars will also give you grounds to potentially terminate employees who are found to continue a lax attitude toward security measures. 

2. Provide motivation for secure dealings.

One of the easiest ways to help employees feel personally motivated to "keep what happens at work at work" is to provide motivations for those who actually do respect company security measures. Have a "most secure employee of the month" award. You could even do security "pop quizzes" during staff meetings. Those who score well could get a small monetary bonus. You could also incorporate security adherence into a requirement for getting a raise or promotion. Those who take security seriously will be the only ones considered for company advancement should opportunities arise. 

3. Provide all employees with basic security equipment.

Even though the bulk of security rests on those you employ, its your job to stay on top of the needed security materials. For example, you should

• provide each employee with a paper shredder to shred sensitive documents.
• train new hires to clear caches on computers.
• provide filters for internet connections.
• continue to improve anti-virus software for all company computers
• upgrade employee information frequently, so that old employee information is removed from the system

4. Monitor online activity and take some responsibility away from employees.

If you have a contracted security company, you should put most of your security needs into their hands instead of in the hands of employees. For example, security personnel should be the ones to lock up at night and monitor security cameras. These companies can also look at internet traffic, and flag employees that seem to be careless about what they search and post while at work. 

Protecting your business is serious business. White-collar crime is real, and lack of security can lead to losing thousands of dollars from your business each year. In fact, these types of crimes are so common that they cost the United States about $300 billion each year. Use security companies to help educate your employees about to reality of crime, how to recognize it, and how they can help prevent it by strictly following and implementing company policies. 

For more information on how to begin, visit resources like http://www.ssnwhq.com.