By Karen Porter

Some people call you “the gatekeeper.” It sounds like a brazen title, but just how impenetrable are you really to those with a will and a way to get by you? Do you unknowingly allow non-company service personnel easy and unsupervised access to sensitive areas of your company? Read onward before you too hastily answer that question, “Of course not.”

Even when your company has a manned security post at the front gate, that security staff often calls someone for entrance approval or an escort of a guest. Often that someone they call is the appropriate administrative professional. But with global security and even domestic violence issues rampant at companies, it pays for administrative professionals to be more vigilant than ever when saying, “Send them in.”

And if you don’t have a security department or post, you often are the only front-line personnel offering first access to your company grounds. Be courteous to guests but without taking this responsibility lightly. Why? What’s the worst that could happen by letting in the telecommunication carrier technician or other routine service personnel and leaving them unescorted?

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