5 Steps to Improve Your After-Hours Key Management

How does your organization handle situations when someone needs a key after hours? Whether it’s a police officer needing a fresh patrol vehicle, a resident locked out of their home, or a maintenance technician responding to an emergency repair, having a plan for these situations is an important part of your key control strategy.

Without planning for after-hours key access, your employees could be unable to retrieve keys required for their job, potentially forcing them to find workarounds that compromise your organization’s security. The key is to create policies and procedures that balance security and convenience. To do so, follow these five best practices for after-hours key management:

Establish Clear Guidelines

First, determine who’s eligible to use keys after hours. You can designate specific people or determine permissions based on a job profile. For instance, a night shift maintenance worker might have different access levels than a daytime office manager.

Enforce these guidelines with a key control system featuring granular user permissions and multifactor authentication to ensure a thorough audit trail. Periodically review your user permissions to ensure the right people have access to the correct keys.

These guidelines increase security by ensuring no one can check out keys without authorization, while making it easy for authorized users to get the keys they need.

Document Your Procedures

To prevent staff miscommunications and protect your organization from liability, document detailed procedures addressing the following items:

• Situations where after-hours access is allowed
• Who is authorized to remove keys after hours
• Required procedures for checking out keys after hours (e.g., notifying a supervisor)
• Consequences for unauthorized after-hours access

Ensure your key control system settings are consistent with the guidelines outlined in your written policies. Schedule periodic reviews of these procedures to keep them current and effective.

Implement Dual Authentication

When someone checks out keys, require multifactor authentication to create checks and balances. For instance, you could configure your key control system to require a user to enter both a unique PIN and scan their fingerprint.

Maintain Comprehensive Audit Trails

Keeping detailed key logs helps hold employees accountable and provides the information you need to investigate security incidents. To reduce the risk of human error or manipulation, transition away from manual logs to electronic key control. Having a system that automatically tracks who removes a key and when helps ensure your key logs are always up to date with user IDs, timestamps, checkout reasons, and more.

Set Up Automatic Notifications

For added accountability, set up alerts that notify a manager or designated person via text or email when someone removes a key after hours. You can customize these notifications based on your organization’s needs. When combined with key control reports, these alerts help identify unusual access patterns.

By implementing these strategies, you can create an after-hours key management protocol that maintains both security and operational efficiency. The goal is to provide necessary access while protecting your assets and maintaining accountability.