Solving the hybrid work era’s most stubborn office security challenges, according to David Zhai, Lead Product Manager at Verkada.
A few months back, a CEO shared something with me that blew my mind: in between meetings with his investors, board and executive team, he often had to step away from his desk to answer his office’s front door.
The CEO found himself in this situation because the office receptionist was no longer just responsible for welcoming visitors.
The receptionist now had a range of duties which included receiving deliveries, putting away packages, refilling the communal coffee pot, cleaning up conference rooms and coordinating office celebrations.
With a pared-back team managing the office – in part due to many employees working from home – the CEO had to cover the gaps.
Unfortunately, an overstretched receptionist or a missing one altogether is the new normal in many workplaces today, impacting office security.
Between the rise in hybrid work schedules and a tight labor market, there are simply fewer office support staff and teams have to do more with less.
Layered on top of this, the number of deliveries received at offices is climbing due to increased higher ecommerce and the growing popularity of food delivery options.
So not only are office managers and receptionists juggling an ever-increasing list of responsibilities, but they are also even more necessary to grant access to the front entrance.
Today’s technology isn’t making things much easier.
Door intercoms are usually how organizations remotely grant access to their buildings but dated systems don’t support the way that modern offices work.
Office staff have to contend with a “ball and chain” problem: their archaic intercom system keeps them tethered to their chairs since the only way to answer calls is a dedicated desk receiver.
Front door calls can’t be forwarded to a personal phone. Updating who is called based on last-minute staffing changes is near impossible.
How and when people are called is immutable throughout the day and week.
Consequently, receptionists are either chained to their desk or they must call in favors to find someone to cover for them so that they don’t compromise on office security.
The problem is so bad that one receptionist told me that she brings her work phone with her to the bathroom to avoid missing calls.
“It would just make me anxious whenever I had to step away from the desk. We have so many time-sensitive deliveries here that I would be in big trouble if I missed one,” she told me.
The absurdity of this dynamic is even more stark when you consider the rise of hybrid work and its ability to empower teams to work with greater flexibility and intention.
Rather than adapting technology to work for their staff, too many office support teams are forced to build their schedules around their technology.
To understand today’s office security challenges, it’s worth first talking about password fatigue.
Essentially, password fatigue is what people feel when they’re forced to remember the ever-increasing number of complex passwords they need in order to access their various online accounts.
Its impact on organizations can be severe as password fatigue leads directly to poor password hygiene and other risky behaviors.
A similar dynamic is playing out at front entrances across the country.
As package and food delivery surge, some offices can get as many as a hundred visitors a day and for large enterprises that number can creep up to the thousands across multiple sites.
For office managers and receptionists who are already stretched thin, it’s sometimes easier to simply admit someone into the building rather than confirming their identity and purpose first.
This leads to a culture of “verification fatigue”.
Oftentimes, the alternative is even worse and can introduce major office security risks: leave the entrance unlocked so anyone can enter the building.
The bottom line is that, while receptionists’ responsibilities have evolved, their tools haven’t.
This isn’t just a minor inconvenience. It seems like not a day goes by when we’re not reminded about the stakes of sub-par physical security.
To support front door personnel during a moment of increasing pressure and decreasing resources, it’s critical that we give them the modern, flexible tools built for today’s era of work.
The result: safer offices and saner teams.
This article was originally published in the June edition of Security Journal Americas. To read your FREE digital edition, click here.