As Washington State continues to reopen and more employees transition back to working in the office, the Downtown Spokane Ambassadors want to share some tips to help prevent unauthorized individuals from causing disturbances within your building.

• Beware of “piggy backers”: One of the most common ways unauthorized individuals infiltrate an office building is by entering or being let in by tenants or employees of that building. Make sure staff in your building are aware of who is in your spaces and questions or reports anything that seems suspicious or out of the ordinary.
• Change door codes regularly: Another common problem is employees giving bathroom or office codes to illegitimate building users. To prevent recurring or frequent unwanted use of your building’s bathrooms or other spaces, make sure to regularly change the codes, especially following an incident of trespassing.
• Encourage more foot traffic throughout your building: Find ways to activate unused spaces in your building as a means to establish organic surveillance of your space. Examples include moving vending machines to a particular area, or activating that space as a break or meeting spot. Have a “meeting on the move” by walking the hallways if possible. Any extra eyes and ears in the building can help discover or prevent lingering by unwanted individuals.
• Educate your staff: Everyone in your building should know what to do / who to contact if they do see any suspicious behavior. Whether that be contacting building security or calling police (in extreme cases), shrugging off odd behavior isn’t always the right response. Report the individual to the appropriate security source and allow them to determine the level of response needed.
• Fine-tune and control your building’s access: Create ways to filter who, where and how people enter your building. For instance, create a sign-in sheet for visitors to the building in an area that can be easily monitored.

The Downtown Spokane Ambassador team includes members who are trained in Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design techniques and are available for free consultations. The advantage of a consultation is to identify weaknesses in your property’s environment that can be remedied to encourage positive activities; such as shopping and tourism and decrease negative activities; such as loitering, car prowling, and theft. Contact our team if you are interested in having your property or space assessed by our team to provide recommendations for improvements to your safety and security.