How to Stop Employees from Propping Open Doors

Employees and students propping open doors is one of the most annoyingly common security issues small business owners and educational facilities encounter. You can have all the security in the world—but if the door to a sensitive area is propped open all the time, does it really matter?

Let’s look at some common reasons for propping open doors.

- Quick trips with the door only open for a few minutes

• This could be smoke breaks, quick trash runs or leaving the door propped open while deliveries are in progress

- Employees and/or students are leaving the door open all day

• There can be a lot of reasons for this. A solid reason is poor indoor ventilation and the lock state on the exterior door disallowing reentry

But how do you stop people from propping doors open? Company policy and signs on the door are unfortunately not enough.

It’s impossible to make employees and students follow every policy if they’re hell-bent on dodging them, but fortunately for every small business owner and school in the country—it’s not too difficult to get this problem under control.

There are two major ways to stop people from propping open doors. Which solution you choose, if you don’t choose both, will depend on why exactly your employees and students are propping open doors to begin with.

Solution 1:

Door Alarms
Door alarms are an inexpensive, one-size-fits-all solution to door propping. No matter which type of door alarm you go with—hint: there’s quite a few to choose from—they all essentially do the same thing: alert everyone in the area that your door is open.

The natural reaction here is to immediately stop the noise. It’s an effective deterrent and alerts managers to the situation. A manager, facility manager, teacher or security guard with the deactivation code would then be called over to deactivate the alarm.

Of course, the type of door alarm that you choose to install will be based upon your needs as well as the size of your property. The Flying Locksmiths recommend the Detex EAX-411SK AC powered door prop alarm, as well as Alarm Lock’s PG21 Series Narrow Stile Door Alarms as they have long been an industry staple.

The alarm features a new strobe light option for sight and sound upon alarm tripping and is a necessity when time is so critical in apprehending a perpetrator making an unauthorized exit.

You aren’t able to watch everyone coming and going all the time which is why it’s so important to have commercial security solutions in place. Door alarms encourage door users to keep the door closed and essentially watch the door for you—which is nifty to have even outside of trying to reign in your employees.

Solution 2:

Stand Alone Access Control
Door alarms are one side of the equation, but honestly, they don’t fix the underlying issue of why people leave the doors open. Usually what we see is it’s an issue with reentry. The lock itself prevents reentry of the employee or student exiting the building because they don't have credentials to re-access the building.

A door alarm will fix the door being propped open, but how often do you want to open the door for an employee, student or visitor that’s locked out? That’s where standalone access control systems come in. At an accessible price, standalone systems allow you to easily dole out credential cards or use mobile credentials easily.

While door alarms can be loud and obnoxious, standalone access controls take the alternate route of ensuring your property is safe by safely and easily allowing reentry.

If you want customized solutions to your toughest security issues, request a free security risk assessment by filling out the contact form or call us today at 800-649-5397 to learn more about securing your education facility or retail/office space. With locations across the U.S., The Flying Locksmiths are able to serve your door security needs!