Keyholding is a valuable security service at any time of year but is particularly useful to put in place during the festive season.

Most business premises, with the exception of retail, are slightly quieter over the festive season and many close entirely for at least a few days between Christmas and New Year.

With a keyholding service in place you can be confident that any security alerts that do occur over this time are still dealt with swiftly, and by security experts who know exactly how to deescalate any situation.

In this article, we will examine the benefits of professional keyholding in more detail, looking at the threats you can face when closing up for the Christmas holidays.

What exactly is keyholding?

Keyholding is a service that benefits businesses at any time of the year, ensuring that a professional security company is the one that deals with emergency situations and not your untrained staff.

Holding a set of the keys to your premises in a secure location, your security firm will monitor your alarm or CCTV system and react immediately in the event of a security breach.

Deploying a team of security professionals, they will visit your site and use your keys to gain access. They will then use all their training and skills to deal with whatever situation has arisen.

As you can imagine, this is a highly valuable asset to have at your disposal at any time of the year, but even more so at Christmas when there are fewer people on site to raise the alarm.

What is the key to putting a keyholding service in place?

Finding the right security company is by far the most important thing when arranging a keyholding service.

You are rightly very selective over who you grant access to your premises and certainly don’t want to be handing out keys to just anyone.

Pick a security firm with a proven track record of protecting commercial premises in your local area and who is fully licenced by the SIA.

If possible, you should also pick a company that offers a range of monitored security systems such as monitored CCTV and monitored alarms. This will ensure that when a situation is detected the keyholding firm is the very first one notified (alongside you of course).

Their staff will also be highly experienced in using the security technology on the site so will be able to reset it when they arrive or utilise it to identify the location of the intruder.

What else can keyholders do?

Besides responding to Christmas emergencies, keyholders can be given responsibility for a variety of other tasks that they will carry out using the set of keys provided.

These include closing up the premises at the end of the working day and opening up again at the start of play.

If you are closing up your premises for the Christmas break there is no better way to ensure that the site is secure than having a professional security team give it the once over before shutdown.