The recent news about the sabotage at Tesla shook the business world and reminded us all about the importance of protecting your sensitive information at all levels. As a janitorial company who works with many high-security facilities we feel strongly about this issue.
Inspired by the various debates on how to protect your company’s secrets, we identified 3 key tips to secure your facility while working with outside service providers:
1. Use cleared personnel for restricted areas
It is important that all the restricted areas are accessed only by cleared personnel. This is not only to control who can physically approach sensitive information, but also saves money on paying your highly compensated employees to supervise un-cleared workers. Additionally, it is crucial that your service contractor uses optimal vetting procedure to identify ideal candidates to receive a security clearance. Asking the right questions helps filter out the unfit applicants.
2. Communicate your compliance standards to your procurement team
Make sure that your procurement team understands your compliance requirements and the risks associated with being noncompliant. This helps avoid the costly mistake of hiring a contractor who doesn’t have experience working in high-security facilities.
3. Thorough background check for all the contracted workers
It is crucial that a service contractor employs a comprehensive background check for all employees. The background check should include, at minimum, the following items: Social Security Number Trace/Address History Validation, 7-Year County Criminal trace, 50 State Enhanced Nationwide Criminal with Sex Offender database search, Federal District Search, 7-year Employment History, and Motor vehicle records check. This helps ensure that the backgrounds of cleared and un-cleared employees that work at or around high-security facilities are documented.
At Servicon we specialize in servicing large, complex and high-security facilities. Contact us to learn more about the ways to protect your organization while working with a contractor.
