Retail facilities have a relatively high turnover rate among hourly employees. That’s especially true when unemployment rates are low, as they are now and employees find it easier to jump from job to job.
A survey by the trade publication, Convenience Store News, found the 2016 annual turnover among part-time retail employees was 54 percent. With employees' confidence in the economy rising, employee comings and goings are sure to rise as well, making a comprehensive key management policy vitally important.
As a loss prevention professional you probably know how much rekeying locks costs your store annually; how many hours you lose waiting for locksmiths to arrive; and how much time is wasted juggling multiple security vendors. You can only guess what your losses would be if you chose not to rekey.
However, with a comprehensive key control program in place you can improve security, reduce liability and eliminate key management issues. But then, you already have a full-time job battling shoplifters, organized retail crime and internal theft. Where will you find the time to put a key management policy in place? Where do you even begin?
One good place to start is with key receipts. You need a record linking keys to employees for compliance and accountability. Retail stores have a lot of doors – public and employee entries, receiving doors, storage rooms, offices, cash rooms … the list goes on.
Since most keys tend to look alike and can be easily copied, you need keys with individualized serial numbers making it easy to match them with employees. If there’s an incident, a readily accessible record of key distribution helps you determine who may have been involved.
You’ll also want restricted keys that can’t be duplicated at the DIY store. Nothing good can come from a former employee carrying a key to your store so have a key return policy that’s part of all exit interviews.
Over time you’re bound to lose a few keys. That’s why regularly scheduled key audits make sense. Audits let you know of missing keys and ensure the rest are still in the right hands. If you find missing keys, it’s time to rekey locks. And you know how expensive and time consuming that can be.
Okay, you say, this is all good advice, but tell me how I can implement this degree of key management at my store. Fortunately, there’s a way to get all of this and more while also saving money in the long run.
InstaKey’s specialized programs are designed to provide the tested, most efficient and cost-effective best practices for managing and administering mechanical locks and keys – regardless of the size or complexity of your key system.
InstaKey’s proprietary cloud-based software makes it easy to link keys to store employees. Any authorized employee can check it 24/7. Audits are easier to complete, and our serialized keys are available only through us or one of our authorized dealers meaning they can’t be copied.
When keys are lost, InstaKey’s lock cylinders can be changed in seconds– without a locksmith. And if this still sounds overwhelming we’ll oversee your key management system letting you get back to other loss prevention duties.
Best of all, our system will pay for itself for the average cost of one to two calls to a locksmith.
For more information on a total key management program, contact InstaKey!
