Answer:
Answer by Dana Turner: After a robbery, one of your first responses should be to consider hiring an armed guard who patrols your premises and greets persons entering the cash-handling facility. Hiring an off-duty LEO is preferred by most institutions. More costly than hiring a civilian security guard but also more effective. Consider leaving this guard in place for 2-6 weeks, depending upon your continuing risk assessment and interviews with employees and customers. The presence of this guard will likely cause both employees and customers to reduce their respective stress levels and attendant safety concerns.
OK -- the same facility gets robbed again. Now what? Hiring a guard and installing "bandit barriers" is a likely next response. You'll have to carefully consider escalating the security environment again. You now have a facility that has a negative history and that's proven to either attract robbers -- or facilitates a robbery because of poor design or position in the community.
Now the facility gets robbed for a third time. Installing a "sally-port" door or "man-trap" may be your next logical step. A very expensive step, too. "Buzzing in" your employees, customers and vendors creates a significant inconvenience to everyone entering the facility -- and for the persons who operate the remote door access device.
Answer:
Answer by Barry Thompson: The one area that should be added to Dana’s comments is counseling for your staff. Depending on how violent the robbery was the need for professional help increases. No matter the robbery method used someone lost control of their environment and may have problems adjusting to this new situation. If this is not handled quickly you may experience staff turnover or other internal problems related to this event.
First published on BankersOnline.com 8/8/11
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