Name tags and ID badges are among the most common methods of visitor management or access control for a business facility. Your employees can have badges to swipe for access to the building or to restricted areas. The badges can have photos of the employees, as well, so that a single security guard can do a quick check to verify that the person swiping the badge is the person to whom it belongs.

Temporary Badges and Office Security

Temporary visitors can be assigned temporary badges. There are a number of different ways of doing this. Some companies who already have employee badges with magnetic strips have guest cards with magnetic strips that can be given to a visitor and re-programmed to allow access to whatever facilities the guest is supposed to use. The biggest problem with this method is that you want to collect the guest pass when the visitor no longer needs it, but frequently the guest forgets to return it. Even if you can cancel the card, it's inefficient and can get costly to replace the number of cards that you will inevitably lose.

There are alternatives for affordable and straightforward temporary access security. You can print out new picture badges for the temporary employee or guest; however, you will either have to program the magnetic strip to expire or have a guard check the badge every time the person enters and exists. You can avoid the issue of badges altogether with self-expiring name tags, which give a visual indication that the visitor is no longer authorized to be in your building when his purpose has been served.

If security is your primary reason for having guests wear name tags, then the main thing you have to consider is getting badges that can not be duplicated. Of course, any badge made by a system that is available to the general public could be duplicated by an enterprising individual, but you want to minimize those chances. Besides ensuring the authenticity of your IDs, enhancing your security measures with some human element, such as a guard's signature or a policy that guests must be accompanied by employees at all times, will further ensure the integrity of your security system.