Visitor/Contractor Logs

Visitor and Contractor logs are normally maintained by security to document the visitors who are entering the facility and contractors who are working at the facility.

Most visitor and contractor logs require the following:

  1. Date & time of visit
  2. Employee or person to be visited
  3. Escorted/Unescorted Visitor– Some facilities will allow for certain visitors to enter a facility and after the person they are to visit has been notified, they are permitted to walk or drive their vehicle unescorted into the facility. By unescorted, it is meant that an employee does not have to be with the visitor at all times. Some facilities never allow for unescorted visits to a facility. Therefore, an employee must always escort the visitor.
  4. Material Entering the Facility– Many facilities (especially those that are government contractors and defense contractors) will require visitors to announce to security personnel what material they are bringing into a facility. Items such as tape recorders and cameras will normally be prohibited from entering the facility.
  5. Materials Leaving the Facility– Visitors, often vendors, may be removing certain material from a facility for testing, or engineering or manufacturing modification. If a material control pass is not used to document this fact, the material may be noted on the bottom or back portion of the visitor pass.
  6. Time Departed– It is essential that security personnel properly record the time a visitor or contractor departs a facility. In the event of an emergency such as a plant evacuation, it is critical that emergency officials know precisely who is in or out of a facility. To a far lesser degree, associates or other employees at the visitor’s place of employment may call for the visitor or inquire when the visitor departed the facility.

As previously noted, it is essential that security personnel maintain accurate records of all visitors and contractors who enter a facility. Situations may occur regarding questions to the timeliness of warranties or maintenance agreements at a certain facility. When the visitor or contractor’s logs are reviewed, it may be proven that the manufacturer’s representative was, in fact, at the facility during the warranty timeframe. The point to be made is that while it is often boring and tedious, the proper maintenance of visitor and contractors logs can be essential to the overall operation of a facility.