Latchkey opening of office

[presario]

I have a question regarding latchkey entry to an office. I am not sure everyone will be aware of the term "latchkey" but it's what it's called in our area . Basically it involves letting yourself through the outer gates of any given office, then letting yourself into the unmanned office disarming the alarm system and then offloading any mail you have on your vehicle and then reversing the procedure and making the office secure again. In our area we have quite a few of these done by our Mech office distribution drivers and they are always two man (most of these are done during the night/early morning) we had one introduced some time back and unfortunately the manner it was brought in gave little wiggle room for the staff involved and they accepted to carry out the duty alone, they open up the office at around 05-55AM an office set in an industrial estate. To date there have been no incidents and since it began a new Police station has been built right next door to the office offering some protection I guess.

Lately the same procedures have been used at other offices (especially over Christmas and at earlier times of the night) and I can see it escalating with proposed changes on the horizon, so my questions are fairly simple, what are the official guidelines for doing a latchkey entry to an office? Should this be a one man or two man job or should this be agreed on a case by case basis following a risk assessment and full discussions.

in the case of the Mech office, all latchkey operations done during the course of the night into the early morning are all two man without exception.

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

A lone worker risk assessment should be carried out, unfortunately most delivery offices now are opened and locked up by a single person, fewer and fewer are being done by more than one person nowadays

[Lounge Lizard]

I often similarly unlock and lock an office, albeit a small one with no disarming the alarm system, and it isn't a problem.