Never Leave Personal Valuables Unattended in a Shared Workspace

Even inside seemingly secure institutions, shared workspaces are not safe storage for personal valuables. Internal workplace theft exploits the false sense of trust that comes from being among colleagues — the assumption that everyone in the building can be relied upon is the precise vulnerability criminals target. In one incident, a police officer placed her handbag on a desk in a shared staff room at a police station before attending to her duties; when she returned hours later, over $57,000 in gold jewellery had been taken from the bag. The theft left no sign of forced entry and produced a large pool of potential suspects, making investigation difficult. The location being a police station made no difference — the handbag was left unattended, and that was enough.

Steps to follow:

• Treat any shared room — staffroom, COC room, lunchroom, locker area, or break room — as a public space; never leave a bag containing valuables unattended in it, even for a short time.
• Remove high-value jewellery before your shift begins and leave it secured at home, or lock it in a dedicated personal space such as a vehicle or a locked drawer that only you access.
• If you must bring valuables to work, keep them on your person throughout the day — a bag that leaves your side, even briefly, is a bag at risk.
• Advocate for lockable personal storage in shared workspaces if none currently exists; treat its absence as a security gap worth raising with management.
• If valuables go missing, report it immediately to a supervisor and to police — early reporting is critical for preserving CCTV footage before it is overwritten.
• Do not post photos of expensive personal items on social media in ways that link them to your workplace; this can flag you as a target to people with access to your building.