Workplace security is forefront on the minds of facilities managers, indicates a recent survey by the International Facility Management Association (IFMA). Seventy-five percent of the respondents to the Corporate Facility Monitor survey reported an increase in security measures in the past 12 months. The survey was sent electronically to more than 3,000 IFMA members and garnered a response rate of 28 percent.
The survey also indicated that the size of the workforce population directly impacts the number of reported incidents, thereby driving larger companies to tighten security in the last year. Facilities characterized as “open to the public” were also more likely to increase security.
Downsizing, layoffs, outsourcing, restructuring, striking workers, replacing permanent workers with temporaries, and other incidents of workplace violence reported by the media were cited as circumstances that would drive companies to increase security, with response rates for likelihood ranging from 41 to 66 percent.
Among the security measures already in place in facilities managed by survey respondents:
- 91.9 percent use controlled building access;
- 60 percent have a security guard at the facilitys entrance;
- 63 percent employ a security patrol; and
- 67.7 percent use closed-circuit television.
Violent and criminal acts that respondents reported in that time period were: major thefts (57.4 %); verbal threats among employees (27.1 %); threatening phone calls (24.9 %); destruction of company property (22 %); verbal threats from employees to management (15.3 %); bomb threats (14.6 %); fights (10.6 %); domestic violence occurring at work (6 %); weapons brought to work (4.9 %); and sexual assault (1.7 %). (Hostage situations, actual or attempted bombings, and actual or attempted murders occurred in less than 1 percent of facilities reporting.) For more information, visit www.ifma.org.
