PERSONALIZED SOLUTIONS
Badges And How They Contribute To The Conversation Around Personal Solutions
At SAGE Integration, we’re often discussing not only the overall solutions for our clients, but also specific strategies for dealing with ongoing issues within an industry.
When we speak with potential clients, and review their current security systems and strategies, we often find a kind of copy\paste strategy from another company or even an industry already in place.
It becomes painfully apparent that whoever their previous security integrator was simply used the same system and strategies from another client or industry to set up their security. While it’s no longer surprising to find this kind of lackluster work in place, the real danger is that it can lead to gaps in security and leave the client vulnerable to attack or harm.
We prioritize the needs of our clients, because after all, they’re what matters most when learning, engineering, installing, or maintaining any security system. As an example of that, we wanted to share some ideas we’ve been kicking around recently about badge access in high-traffic industries. But we wanted to begin with a disclaimer that, while we hope this conversation is helpful, individual solutions should be personalized to your specific needs.
BADGES, HIGH ACCESS, AND COVID
In the past 2 years, the COVID-19 pandemic has focused attention on capacity planning and tracking the identity of individuals who access high-congestion businesses and venues, such as sporting arenas or hospitals.
As an example, in a busy hospital, healthcare workers and others move from one area or floor to another rapidly, serving different departments. With most staff wearing masks and other PPE, it can be difficult to identify these specific individuals. All this movement can create chaos in hospitals (and other similar environments) that do not have the proper ID card solution in place to track employees, visitors, and contractors.
These challenges are true in many industries that deal with high volumes of traffic whether they’re sporting arenas, conference venues, schools, and many others. With the return of people to public spaces this spring, the need for a practical access control badging solution has also risen to the top of many priority lists.
One consideration with ID card solutions and badging is the type of card and size of card. Some venues and hospitals use temporary cards for visitors, volunteers and even staff. For others, more permanent, reusable ID cards can help distinguish, staff, volunteers, and others within the facility.
Oversized ID badges are an option that may be helpful in applications such as healthcare facilities, conferences, or other high traffic situations where staff intermix with concert goers, fans, conference attendees, visitors, or customers. These types of badges are larger than the standard credit card size and allow individuals to be easily recognized in a crowd. With many mask mandates still in place, larger badges can also allow security personnel and others to recognize staff members with a photo of their face on an ID Badge.
In addition, venues can add an extra layer of security and adopt a color-coded ID badge system to more easily distinguish between an employee, contractor or visitor. For example, all visitors might have a purple bar code printed on their badge, while an employee or staff member might have red.
In addition to ID cards themselves, security teams should ensure that staff have the appropriate badge accessories so staff can be easily identified. Badge holders, badge reels and lanyards can help display badges properly. Demand for anti-microbial breakaway lanyards is increasing at hospitals and other venues as well. This type of lanyard is typically made with a material containing nanoparticle-coated fibers that inhibit the growth of germs and kill odor-causing bacteria.
Another consideration for these organizations and venues with badging is integration of ID cards with access control solutions. With many of our clients, such integrations are particularly useful in allowing security staff and administrators to restrict personnel, visitors, and others based on their credentials.
THE SOLUTION DEPENDS ON YOU
Badges, especially ones that are responsible for identification as well as access control, are just one consideration that will depend greatly on the client to implement properly. And more importantly, they constitute one personalized consideration in an entire ecosystem of factors and implementations that we coordinate with clients.
There is no one right way, and any integrator who tells you so is looking for the quick buck or fix. Solutions take time, and they take an integrator who’s trying to understand your specific needs.
Are you looking for identification solutions or other kinds of ways to improve the security of your organization? Then it might be time for a call.