False Alarms

Are false alarms becoming an expensive problem in your business?

False alarms are inconvenient for everyone, and can result in huge unnecessary costs for your business. If you’re experiencing a lot of problems with false alarms in your workplace, now is the time to take action. Don’t just put up with it – you could be throwing money away. Instead, take steps to reduce false alarms and in the long-term, you’ll be saving your business a great deal of expense and inconvenience.

5 ways to prevent false alarms

Here are just a handful of the key ways you can reduce false alarms in your business and potentially save money and make better use of your resources:

1. Train your staff. Staff who are trained to properly use access control and alarm systems are less likely to unwittingly fall foul of them. Common problems include entering prohibited areas (because employees haven’t been informed that an area has now become restricted), leaving doors ajar or trying to force locked doors, and failing to set/unset alarm systems correctly. Employees who are fully informed of how systems work are more able to use them properly and avoid accidentally triggering false alarms.

2. Get real-time access to CCTV images. There are lots of advanced security systems available that allow you real-time access to images of areas where alarms have been triggered. Examples include Risco Agility wireless alarms and Davantis Technologies CCTV Analytics solutions. Either using your computer or an app on your smartphone, you can view images and information from a trigger event – so you can verify instantly whether there has been an intrusion or not. You can then take the appropriate action, quickly and without any fuss or extra cost.

3. Upgrade your security system. The key thing you should be looking for from a CCTV or alarm system is accuracy. The technology needs to be able to recognise programmed triggers such as unusual behaviour and movement, forced access, missing items and intrusions into restricted zones, and ignore everything else. If it doesn’t and keeps triggering alarms for no reason, it might be time for an upgrade.

4. Take a closer look at opening and closing procedures. If your staff are not following proper opening and closing procedures, or there are no clear procedures in place, then this could be the cause of your problems with false alarms. Take another look at your procedures and train your staff to follow them properly.

5. Make sure you understand your system inside out. A good security solution should be user-friendly and integrate well with other CCTV and access control technology you already have. However, it’s crucial for you – as the business owner – to fully understand its functions and benefits in order to get the most value from the system, and of course to prevent false alarms. Once you are confident using the system, you can then train others to use it properly.