For me this is an easy question today, since the days visitor management books were made popular much has changed. I have spoken to thousands of companies over the years willing to share with me the issues around the visitor management book. The three biggest issues are….
- Information is illegible much of the time
- Other suppliers can see who else has been in the building
- lack of compliance.
Not only do I hear about the broader issues many customers go into great detail. Not being able to read the information collected is a real issue when something happens. Going back over the book to read entries from last month on a Tuesday to see who was in around 10 am can be quite challenging. Along with not being able to read the data it is impossible to report on the data. I have lost count of the number of customers who make contact with me and explain every month for reporting purposes they spend hours going through a manual book that has recorded the entry and exit of visitors or contractors and sometimes employees.
It is amazing to watch these same people see how within a couple of clicks you can have the same information saving many hours every month of what is really wasted time.
Many customers are concerned about the information that suppliers can see when they walk into a building while some visitor management books will hide the information in carbon copy many don’t.
Compliance is a constant issue. Only last week I was in a large multinational who are currently expanding our visitor and Contractor Management software across multiple locations. I was at a new location for another division of the company that already seen the product and wanted to know more. As I signed in with the visitor book there was a sign that asked me to go to the next room to read the health and safety statement. When I went into the next room the health and safety statement was flat on the top of the filing cabinet, I picked it up and started to read. Once I completed reading this large document that had been laminated I was not asked to confirm anywhere that I’d actually read the document.
Every time I show new customers the visitor light induction that is built into our visitor management software they are amazed at the level of compliance we can achieve. Not only do we gain the compliance of the visitor but we can also report on this information easily. Once a visitor has completed and induction system can be triggered to ask the visitor to renew the induction in 3 months or 6 months or 12 months time. Traditionally inductions have been completed once every 12 months or 2 years, I have always said since going electronic that you should bring this forward because the systems can manage this for you.
If I come into your location and don’t come back for 10 months how can I possibly be expected to remember the information you gave me 10 months ago?
Going electronic with visitor management software means you could set the induction to be completed every 3 months as an example, this would keep your visitors well up to date with the health and safety policies for your location.
Why else would I upgrade from visitor management books to visitor management software?
Electronic visitor management software is designed to help you manage your visitors, give you extensive reporting and communicate with the host of the visitor. From this point there are many optional modules that can be included for your location at no additional cost.
What are some of the modules that I can add to my visitor management software for my location?
Contractor management – is popular on many locations a matter if you have only a few contractors or thousands of contractors on a single or across multiple locations. There are many benefits to managing contractors when they sign in & out of your location.
One benefit if you have a lot of contractors that would pay for the system on its own is the benefit of checking an invoice against the time the contract was on-site. Feedback from customers is the manual system is simply never checked because it’s too hard. Going electronic with your visitor management software gives you the ability to instantly run reports against the invoice to make sure you’re not being ripped off.
Asset Management – many customers say to me they don’t think value is the asset management module only to discover as we continue the conversation that assets are being issued every day in the organisation. When we talk about asset management and visitor Management software we refer to the issuance of assets given to employees or contractors or visitors for a short period of time that we would expect to receive back.
The most common example is key is for access control cards. The project in the UK recently at a university found around 400 keys that would be managed manually. I went into a customer last week advised they would have thousands of items that fit into asset management as I have explained all of which are currently managed manually. The issues of the same everywhere people really don’t know where stuff is, this opens the way for items to be lost or stolen. Going electronic will give you instant reporting and history on the asset.
Evacuation Management – When you have visitor books an evacuation drill starts with somebody going to pick up the visitor management books to take outside….. What are the problems associated with an evacuation drill run with visitor management books?
- You can have multiple books one for visitors one for contractors one for employees who forgot their access control card today, having you possibly manage and evacuation with one set of books and 10 fire wardens.
- Most of the time you do not have a list of the employees in the building this is a common problem with visitor management books. When moving to electronic visitor management is much easier to have the employee presents on site included in the system to be used in the event of an evacuation drill.
As you can see there is a whole lot more to electronic visitor management when compared to a visitor management book. The best way to take a closer look is to book in a demonstration.