Crafting a Robust Visitor Policy: 8 Essential Elements for Production Site Safety

In the consumer goods industry, creating exceptional visitor experiences goes beyond just a warm welcome. It involves implementing a well-crafted visitor policy that balances security, compliance, and hospitality. After all, visitors are an important part of what helps your company develop your product, expand your business, and maintain a great brand reputation.

A visitor policy for a production site is a set of rules that state who's allowed onsite, when they're allowed to be there, and which parts of the facility they can access. Having a workplace visitor policy in place is important because it helps to:

• Keep everyone on-site safe
• Stay compliant with regional regulations
• Create a consistent visitor experience
• Save time for your team

To create an effective and standardized visitor policy, you'll want to include the following 8 essential sections:

1. Purpose and Scope

Your policy should clearly outline the purpose and scope, including types of visitors allowed, where they should sign in, what hours they're allowed to visit, and specific access or safety requirements. Work closely with your executive team and production site managers to outline the types of visitors that are allowed and the goal of their visit.

2. Access

Clearly outline which individuals or groups are allowed into different areas of the workplace. For example, your facility might welcome business partners, vendors, or auditors, but doesn't allow family members or friends to visit. You may also want to include a list of blocked or flagged individuals who are not allowed to enter the facility.

3. Confidentiality

If your facility handles sensitive information or proprietary processes, it's crucial to take extra precautions to protect your company's trade secrets and intellectual property. Include which documents visitors need to sign before they arrive on site, such as non-disclosure agreements or waivers.

4. Health & Safety Guidelines

Your production site likely has heavy machinery, hazardous chemicals, or delicate equipment that are intended to only be used by trained professionals. Outline all of the pre-, during, and post-visit safety rules, such as dress requirements, PPE, and access restrictions.

5. Emergency Procedures

Include clear instructions such as evacuation protocols, assembly points, and emergency contact information. This information should be easily accessible in your facility and communicated to your visitors during the sign-in process.

6. Data Protection & Privacy

Clearly outline how visitor information will be collected, stored, and used in compliance with data protection laws such as GDPR or other regional regulations.

7. Violations

Be prepared with the process that is needed to deal with violations of the policy. For example, if a visitor doesn't watch the required video or refuses to sign necessary documents, what should your front desk administrator do?

8. Communication & Training

Communicate your policy to all employees and staff. Provide multiple training sessions for your front desk team, security team, and any employee that regularly interacts with visitors. Frequently revisit your policy to make adjustments and retrain your people.

Using a visitor management system (VMS) will help you standardize at scale—while also giving you the flexibility to meet local and regional requirements. Look for a VMS that can easily sync with any of your existing tools such as your existing access control system or document storage tool.

Some key benefits of using a VMS to maintain consistency and scale your workplace visitor policy include:

• Pull centralized data across locations
• Easily adopt across all locations
• Uphold a great brand through a consistently good experience

Coupling your visitor policy with the right visitor management software can create the ultimate experience for anyone who enters your facility. This not only elevates your brand reputation and sets you apart from competitors, but it also supports your compliance needs and safety standards.

Ready to improve the visitor experience across all your locations? Check out our blog post on how to build a stellar brand through visitor management.