Unescorted Visitors

What Is Unescorted Visitors?

A visitor badge records that someone was signed in at a front desk. The escort is what keeps track of where they go next, and it is the half that quietly goes missing. In this exercise a guest turns up on your floor with no host, a plausible reason and a badge that says she should not be alone. You practise reading the badge, asking the question that settles it, walking her back, and reporting the handover that failed.

What You'll Learn in Unescorted Visitors

• Recognize that a visitor badge marked Escort required describes an agreement at the desk, not the visitor's current situation
• Identify the moment a guest has come loose from their host, even when their badge, story and reason for visiting all hold up
• Verify a visitor's purpose by asking who they are here to see rather than what they are looking for
• Escort an unaccompanied visitor back to reception instead of directing them onward through the building
• Report an escort failure so the handover at the front desk gets corrected for every visitor who follows

Unescorted Visitors — Training Steps

1. Auditors In Today

   It is a quiet Thursday morning on the third floor of Kestrel & Vane Publishing. Alice is marking up proofs with a mug of tea going cold beside the keyboard. An email from the front desk lands, the kind that goes round whenever outsiders are in the building.

2. Someone On The Floor

   At twenty past ten a woman steps onto the third floor. Visitor lanyard, clipboard under one arm, and nobody walking with her. The third floor is not on the schedule Ivy sent round.

3. Straight To The Printer

   She does not stop at the nearest desk to ask for directions. She crosses the floor to the shared printer, the one a few steps from Alice's chair. The tray under it still holds this morning's unclaimed job: the partner pay review, sent down at 09:41 and never collected.

4. Read The Badge

   Before deciding anything, look at what she is wearing. The lanyard is the only thing on this floor that says who she is and on what terms she is allowed to be here.

5. She Explains Herself

   She notices Alice watching and offers an explanation before anyone asks for one.

6. What Do You Say?

   Nothing she has said is implausible. There really are auditors in the building, the badge really was issued at the front desk, and she really does seem to be looking for a printer. What is missing is the person who is supposed to be standing beside her.

7. Who She Is Here To See

   It is an easy question for a genuine visitor, and she answers it without hesitating.

8. Where The Risk Was

   Her story holds up. That does not make the last twenty minutes fine.

9. Walk Her Back

   Alice stands up and walks Marta back across the floor to the lift, and down to the front desk. It costs four minutes, and it is the whole of the fix.

10. Back To Reception

    Ivy signs Marta back in at the desk and pages her host properly this time. Whatever happened on the way up, the visit is back inside the process it was supposed to be in.