Key control after an employee termination

Every commercial property handles departures. Most handle the amicable ones by collecting a key and moving on, which is fine right up until the departure that is not amicable, when the question becomes what exactly this person could reach, and nobody can answer it.

The first hour, when it is urgent

For a termination where there is any concern at all, the order matters more than the thoroughness.

1. Revoke electronic credentials first. Cards, fobs and mobile access can be disabled immediately from wherever the system is administered, and that costs nothing. Do this before anything physical.
2. Change codes on keypad doors. Also immediate, also free, and frequently forgotten because codes are shared and nobody owns them.
3. Collect the physical keys you know about, and record what came back against what was issued.
4. Then decide about the mechanical doors, which is the part that costs money and needs a judgement.

The first two are the whole reason to have electronic access on doors that matter. A departure becomes a database change rather than a site visit.

Deciding whether to rekey

Rekeying invalidates every copy in circulation, including copies nobody declared. The question is whether you need that certainty on a given door.

Rekey when the departure was involuntary or contentious, when the register does not account for every key issued to that person, when the keyway is standard so copies could have been cut freely, or when the door protects cash, stock, records, controlled areas or the means to reach them.

Collecting the key is enough when the departure was routine, the register is complete and reconciles, the keyway is restricted so no uncontrolled copies can exist, and the door is low consequence.

Most properties will find that the second column describes fewer doors than they assumed, and that is the useful realisation.

The doors people forget

The suite door gets rekeyed. These do not, and they carry the same exposure:

• Stockrooms, storage cages and secure cupboards
• Roof access hatches and ladders
• Electrical rooms, risers and plant spaces
• Gate cylinders, compound padlocks and bin store locks
• Key cabinets, which are the highest-consequence lock on most properties
• Cash office and safe room doors, separately from the safe itself
• Vehicle and equipment keys, which are rarely on any register at all

The key cabinet is the one worth pausing on. If a departing person had access to the cabinet, rekeying one door achieves very little, and the honest scope is everything the cabinet opened.

When the register is incomplete

This is the common case and it is worth being unsentimental about. If you cannot establish what a person held, you are choosing between two positions: assume the worst and rekey the affected group, or accept a known unknown and write it down.

Both are legitimate. Writing it down matters, because an undocumented decision to accept risk is indistinguishable from not having noticed, and the difference shows up in an insurance conversation.

Rekeying one door and leaving the group it belonged to untouched achieves very little, and it is the option to avoid.

The version of this that costs almost nothing

Everything above is expensive because it happens after the fact. The version that is nearly free happens at issue.

Record every key when it goes out: the stamp on the key, the doors or group it operates, the holder, and the date. Stamp keys with a code rather than a door name, so a lost key does not advertise what it opens. Require the physical key back before a final payment or a deposit is released. Reconcile the register annually, which on most properties takes an afternoon.

A property doing those four things handles a termination with a phone call and a spreadsheet. A property doing none of them handles it with a quote.

Restricted keyways, once more

On a standard keyway, collecting a key proves nothing, because copies can be cut anywhere for a few dollars. Rekeying is the only way to be certain, so every significant departure is a cost.

On a restricted keyway, blanks are supplied only to the registered holder. Copies require your authorisation, so a returned key genuinely means something and collection becomes a real alternative to rekeying. For a property with regular turnover the keyway usually pays for itself within a couple of years on avoided rekeys alone.

How we handle it

Rekeying, lock replacement, master key work, key registers and restricted keyway systems are all performed by our own W-2 employees, and no Florida contractor licence is required for any of it. Reader hardware, keypads and code changes are ours too; the wiring behind an access system is electrical work under Florida law, so a licensed electrician handles that part.

On an urgent termination we list every cylinder first, including the ones off the main circulation, so the scope is a decision rather than a guess. We issue the updated register the same day and photograph the hardware, because the record is what turns this from a recurring panic into a routine.