Introducing the Floor Marshal
I have experience doing physical penetration tests of office buildings. My job was to walk into an office, sit down at a computer and see how long I could stay at the office before someone questioned my reason to be there. Sometimes I have stayed for days. If I could successfully walk into a building and gain access to unauthorized sections, one of my biggest recommendations is always implement a floor marshal system. A floor marshal is the person employees can go to when they think someone is out of place.
Most companies are too big for everyone to know everyone else but are small enough that you can usually detect when someone is out of place. Unauthorized people in your office building can steal computers and files and even pose a threat to employees.
Most employees that see someone out of place fail to report it. They either think it is not their concern or they do not want to suffer the embarrassment if they are wrong.
Assigning a Floor Marshal
By forming a floor marshal committee, organizations can raise the safety and security of their office buildings. This committee should report directly to the Chief Security Officer (CSO). This committee should include the actual floor marshals, the CSO, building security, and from time to time a local police officer as a liaison from the committee to the local police force.
A floor marshal is simply a volunteer that when other employee thinks they see an unauthorized person on the premise they can contact the floor marshal to investigate. Each floor should have a primary and secondary floor marshal for maximum coverage.
These floor marshals should have training on how to approach people, but be firm and prepared to escalate.
The floor marshals need to have a direct line to:
- building security
- CSO
- local police
A policy that really helps the floor marshal is that of employee identification cards or name tags. All guests need to have a guest pass in form of an identification card or name tag. These guest passes need to have the name of the guest’s sponsor so the sponsor can be contacted to verify the guest authorization to be in the building.
When to Notify Your Floor Marshal
When an employee thinks there is an unauthorized person on the premise the employee should be able to contact the floor marshal by phone, email, text message or in person. The employee should feel confident when reporting someone and never feel the chance, if they are wrong, they will be ridiculed for the mistake.
When a floor marshal needs to approach an unauthorized person the following actions need to be taken:
- Request the person’s employee ID or guest pass. In the case of a guest pass, it should be verified by the sponsor.
- If there is no ID then request them to follow you to the front desk to sign in and have the sponsor of the visitor confirmed and have a guest ID created.
- If the person was just “roaming”, politely escort from building. If any resistance call building security immediately. Floor marshals should not be responsible for any unwieldy visitors and at anytime an employee or the floor marshal feels unsafe, building security or the local police should be called immediately.
The Floor Marshal committee should meet once a month to discuss incidents and how the process is going.
Conclusion
With a floor marshal system in place employees can feel safe to report strangers which will keep the whole building and all the employees, data and computers safer.
