CCTV is an incredibly useful tool for employers for a large variety of reasons. Some of these are fairly obvious – such as preventing thefts and other crimes, aiding the police and watching employees. However there are many aspects and elements that you may not have considered that make CCTV not just useful, but invaluable, and make it a system that every manager should employ. Bellow are just some of the extra hidden benefits of owning CCTV.
Protecting Employees – In many jobs your employees are vulnerable to physical or verbal attacks from the general public. In high pressure or stressful situations, it’s not unusual that customers will lash out at a company representative. Knowing that they are being watched by CCTV however can minimise these cases and empower them to calmly deal with them. Furthermore, it can protect them against false allegations which can also be common depending on the nature of the business.
Preventing Crime – Of course CCTV can help you identify how a crime happened and to spot it in action, but it can also prevent it from occurring in the first place simply by them knowing they’re being watched.
Preventing Employee Theft – Theft and crime doesn’t just occur when customers or members of public pocket goods; a lot of the time it is employees themselves who are steeling from the business.
Statistics and focus groups suggest that the reason for this isn’t often need but rather opportunity. If your staff know that they’re being watched it will make this far less likely.
Employee Satisfaction – However, should you be experiencing a fair amount of employee theft, it may suggest that your employees aren’t happy with their work and that this is a way of ‘lashing out’ at the company.
Watching CCTV can give you an idea of life in the shoes of employees which can help you to streamline the business and to ensure they enjoy their work.
Settling Disputes – Sometimes, if a customer has a complaint about your service, it can be hard to know who’s in the wrong. Customers will regularly claim they’ve been short-changed or that they’ve been purposefully sold poor goods. Similarly they may try to claim that an accident that occurred on your premises was due to a breach in health and safety regulations. Unfortunately it’s hard to identify the cases where this is true and the cases where it’s fabricated. Even just mentioning that you have a record on CCTV however can make the con artists back down.
Placing Blame – If a serious mistake has been made, or something has been stolen, it may well be that a member of staff needs to be reprimanded or pointed in the right direction. If no employees don’t own up to the mistake however then mistakes can be allowed to slide or the wrong member of staff can be penalised.
Keeping Records – CCTV also acts as an automated system for keeping records and can allow you to prove to clients and check yourself that their shipments were indeed deployed etc.
Inspiring Confidence – CCTV can also be useful for the customers themselves by creating a safe feeling environment. It can allow you to spot crimes against customers (particularly in bars etc) and even accidents on the work premises.