9 Visitor Management Guidelines Corporates Should Follow
While visitor management systems gained popularity during the pandemic, they’re definitely here to stay. They started becoming standard practice in a large majority of corporate offices to enhance visitor arrivals, stay, and exit.
Visitors are an integral part of most organizations. They could be deliverymen, family members, employees from other locations, and business partners.
It’s the company’s duty to ensure everyone feels welcome and leaves your organization with a positive impression. You do this by setting visitor management guidelines that’ll ensure the safety of your visitors, employees, and the premises as a whole.
This article will go through nine visitor management guidelines that’ll allow you streamline and manage visits efficiently.
What Are Visitor Management Guidelines?
Visitor management guidelines are procedures that employees and visitors must follow to manage company visits in an organized manner.
When hosting events or seminars at your office, manually managing visitors through a logbook can be a real hassle (not to mention, it looks a little unprofessional according to modern standards).
Having your guests go through a long procedure at the reception — waiting in line, showing their IDs, writing down their information, and waiting for a badge to be printed — can potentially serve to annoy them.
This is especially embarrassing if your company is well-known for its cutting-edge services and attention to customer needs. Having guests sign in on a clipboard in the foyer probably won’t match your brand image.
You want your guests to see your organization in a positive light during their stay and after they leave.
So here are some simple visitor management guidelines you should always keep in mind
1. Pick a User-Friendly System
While a visitor management system improves office productivity and security, it’s one of the first interactions your visitors will have with your company. Thus, the impression made on your visitor must stem from a pleasant experience with the system.
Choose a visitor management system with an easy-to-understand interface. A visitor should be able to check in in 15–20 seconds.
2. Classify Your Guests
You can classify the people who visit your organization as, but not limited to, the following:
- Participants at a business meeting
- Prospective employees
- Deliverypersons
- Third-party service providers or product suppliers
- Auditors and regulation inspectors
- Visitors who show up out of the blue
By categorizing your guests, you’ll be able to prioritize entry for important and frequent visitors while enabling security checks for new (or suspicious) ones.
3. Place the Kiosk in a Visible Area
Self-serve kiosks are commonly used to implement visitor management systems. That kiosk ought to be situated in an area where guests can spot it quickly.
If you place the kiosk in the corner or a hard-to-find location, your visitors will likely start knocking on doors — which is exactly what the system is meant to avoid.
4. Enables Message Forwarding and Automatic Alerts
Set up your visitor management system to notify staff members about visitor arrivals in advance and upon arrival.
In the even an employee falls sick or is on leave, set up message forwarding as a backup so that:
- Someone else will be informed of a visitor’s arrival.
- The visitor gets a message to reschedule well in advance.
5. Require Visitor Checkouts
Visitor checkouts are usually built into a smart visitor management system. But you’ll need to let visitors know in advance that they need to check out.
When visitors don’t check out, it could mean one of few things:
- They’re overstaying their welcome.
- They have ulterior motives for overstaying.
- They’re lost.
Informing visitors about the checkout procedure in your visitor management guidelines will ensure a smooth exit.
6. Monitor Visitor Traffic
Unlike paper sign-in, a visitor management system makes it simple for you to generate reports and analyze your data. This will help you identify areas where your efficiency could use some work.
For instance, do you typically find that appointments or visits last longer than you anticipate? Does the business that handles deliveries for you make multiple pickups each day that could be consolidated into one? Monitoring visitor traffic can reveal a surprising amount about how your office is run.
7. Plan For Emergencies
This practice applies regardless of whether you have a visitor management system in place. Visitors won’t always be aware of your evacuation procedures. Your security team and emergency managers are in charge of looking out for them in times of need.
Evacuation drills should already be being held at your company. Incorporate visitor management into your training exercises and drills. Place dummy visitors close to danger zones. Have emergency personnel conduct safety checks in those areas and guide guests to the safe zones.
8. Align With Overall Security Goals
Determine how visitor management will fit into your overall security plan by first taking a step back. Are you primarily trying to stop theft? Do you need to reduce the possibility of unattended personnel entering dangerous areas? Do you need to manage emergency response activities more effectively?
Determine how you will use the current procedures, personnel, and security measures to address these particular needs. Then, think about any potential new visitor management resources you may require.
Even though visitor management systems are useful on their own, they’re even more helpful when integrated with your company's other security systems. You can authenticate visitors at key checkpoints, for instance, by integrating visitor management with your access control system. This enables them to safely and unattended move through your facility.
You might also consider combining your emergency mustering system with a visitor management system. Your emergency managers will then be able to monitor in real-time which visitors are still inside the building, which are leaving with staff, and which could be left behind or lost in the event of an evacuation.
9. Centralize All Systems
The redundant work of adding and changing visitors across various security systems is eliminated by centralized user management. This lessens the possibility of errors leading to performance lags.
Additionally, central management consolidates all of your logs and reports in one place. It’s simpler to create thorough reports and track performance trends. Additionally, your IT department only needs to back up a single user database to safeguard the data for each integrated system.
Employ Visitor Management Guidelines in Your Workplace Today
Incorporating a visitor management SOP in your workplace can turn out to be one of the best decisions you have made for your office if you pick a good service provider. Looking for an efficient and hassle-free visitor management system? Find out how Vizmo can help you by scheduling a discovery call today.