4 Benefits to Using a Global Badging System
By Rachel Stainton, Jan 07, 2019
Global badging is the process through which an employee uses a single badge for each location or campus within a company. This system is an alternative to a multiple badging system where employees have multiple badges for each office within a company. Global badging systems offer four main benefits to your global security systems and are a necessary update to multi-badge systems. These benefits are reduced friction for traveling employees, less possibility of duplicate badging numbers, reduced liability for lost badges, and long-term cost savings.
Mitigate Travel Lag Between Offices
Say for instance your company has offices in London, Shanghai and New York. With a multiple badging system, you would need a separate badge for each office, which creates friction and high potential for inaccessibility. Your employee would need to either receive the badge prior to their visit and remember to bring the additional badge or have someone at the office they are travelling to have one ready in advance. This could involve administrative configuration of the access control system and printing a new badge either onsite, if you have printing capabilities, or ordering a new badge. Last minute or emergency travel could complicate this process immensely and waste valuable time. With a global badging system, one administrator from any office, depending on your access control system, can allow access remotely and the employee can use their home office badge abroad. While access control system specifics for global badging administration may differ, more often than not the solution is to have every office operating on the same facility code. This removes friction and ensures that their time is well spent while travelling, not on tedious accessibility issues.
Stop Duplication
Another benefit to adopting a global badging system is the mitigation of potentially duplicated badge numbers. When a single access control system is used throughout your company regardless of building or region, it is impossible to have duplicate badge numbers. This prevents confusion and time lost spent creating new badge numbers for employees while travelling. For example, if two employees in different offices happen to accidentally have the same badge number, they will need a completely new number instead of using their original when they need access to the other building. Instead of simply adding building access to one badge number, your system administrator will have to essentially onboard a current employee because a completely new number has to be assigned. With global badging, the administration time is markedly less and there is no chance for confusion between duplicated badge numbers.
Prevent Theft and Unnecessary Risk
The third benefit is reduced liability of theft and intruders from having less badges with building access printed in circulation. This means less badges that can be lost or stolen and used to break into buildings, rooms or access-only sensitive areas. Not only does this protect the company, but it has the added return on investment in the form of resources being used for more important tasks, rather than spending extra time disabling and enabling multiple badges for the same employee.
Reduce Administrative Resource Waste
The last benefit a global badging system provides is long-term cost savings. Administrative time spent configuring multiple systems and badges can be incredibly costly and eat into overhead budgets. Over time, as more employees are added into your access control system as your company grows, less time and resources are necessary to onboard new hires to multiple sites by having each site on the same badging system. The same goes for terminations, where expediency in terminating access quickly may make a crucial difference. Disgruntled ex-employees who may wish to endanger other employees or company property after a termination can be removed from the badging system much faster with a global system than multiple systems. While it may initially seem costly to make the switch to global badging if your access control systems do not already work cohesively together, the long-term return on investments are well worth it.