Security Benefits That Will Actually Help You

Any professional security organization’s security officer personnel is typically the backbone. Every security manager is tasked with finding the appropriate source and strategy for manning and managing this force. Flexible staffing options, experienced management, intensive training, detailed selection and recruiting, professional officers, and more are all promised by contract security services. How many contract providers actually keep their word? How can you know if the vendor you choose is capable of providing the service you require?

Who Determines the Vendor Focus Professional Security

Paying attention to residential security London issues unique to each customer is the foundation of a successful professional security program. Generic training programs will not adequately prepare vendor officers for work on your premises. Officers assigned to your location will not have the skill sets or personalities to meet your demands if you use broad recruiting and hiring standards. The vendor’s policies and procedures may not provide the required basis for success at your location.

Security Services by Professionals

Creating a good security program for your company is a difficult task. At every level of this process, the specific attributes of your location must be considered, as well as how each vendor’s actions contribute to meeting these objectives. Training programs, selection standards, recruiting plans, operating processes, and more have all been established by vendors. The goal is to make their security programs more efficient and effective.

The issue is that this is practically the definition of the “One Size Fits All” attitude. If the vendor uses a physical ability criteria, they may rule out a candidate who would be a good fit for your needs if your site does not have any hard physical requirements. If your site has duties that require officers to be in good physical shape, failing to take physical fitness into account can have a detrimental influence on their ability to operate adequately. Many other sectors follow the same principle. Any training program will never be able to adequately prepare a person for all conceivable duties and event responses. As a result, it’s critical that training programs concentrate on topics that will help officers in their current roles. It’s impossible to create a single program that accomplishes this for all officers on all deployments.

Again, establishing and maintaining an effective security program is a difficult task. Every activity taken by the vendor should be aimed at achieving the greatest possible outcome for your company. As a result, your company’s recruiting, hiring, staffing, training, management, and operations templates must be adapted particularly for your company. Anything less than complete customisation is doomed to fail.

Early Warning Signs

Look for indicators of the “One Size Fits All” approach while interacting with an existing or future vendor. Obviously, each vendor will have their own reasons for believing they are superior to the competition. Allow them to explain it to you. However, if they start talking about their own programs, it’s a solid sign they don’t see the importance of the Fully Customized Security Program.

Once you’ve identified the warning flags, be sure the vendor is actually working with you to develop a program that meets your goals.

Professional Security Services Recruiting and Selection

All of the training, policies, and processes in place, as well as management responses, are insufficient to address the issue of putting the wrong individual in the wrong position. It’s vital to keep in mind that we’re not dealing with machines here. These are individuals. Individuals can make mistakes, including misrepresenting themselves. As a result, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to identifying the proper person. However, the vendor’s efforts must be concentrated on locating and allocating employees with the necessary skill sets and personalities to fit within your organization.

Identify critical needs and generate job descriptions for each position you’ll need before moving forward with developing your security program with the vendor. As permitted by law, this job description may contain, but is not limited to, the following:

  • Requirements for education
  • Physical specifications (lifting, walking, etc.)
  • Experience is required.
  • Requirements for medical training
  • Requirements for availability
  • Job-specific training needs for computer aptitude
  • Minimum age restrictions

In addition to meeting the minimal standards, the vendor should understand the personality and security approach you want from employees allocated to your company.

Security Training for Professionals

Many decent people have failed as security officers in my career simply because they did not know how to conduct their jobs. They had all of the necessary abilities, personality qualities, and will to succeed, but lacked the necessary information. When faced with an issue for which they had not been taught in the right management, I’ve seen good police make awful decisions.

Each state has its own set of minimal training requirements. For example, the state of Minnesota mandates twelve (12) hours of pre-assignment training and six (6) hours of annual continuing education. This clearly isn’t enough to prepare someone for a job as a security officer. Additional education will be required.

When the vendor creates a training program to advance the employee’s education, you should ask yourself, “How does this training prepare the officer for employment at my site?” If the officer’s training focuses on CCTV operation and monitoring, but your site lacks cameras, you won’t learn anything useful.

Join forces with the vendor. Ascertain that enough ongoing training is provided, and that course work is focused on areas of study relevant to your locality.

Security Management by Professionals

The quality of the managers, particularly the one allocated to your account, is one of the characteristics that distinguishes one organization from another and separates the good vendors from the bad. When you employ a security vendor, the objective is that the account manager will be a security specialist who can provide guidance and direction in leading your security program. This is unfortunately not always the case.

Question and interview the manager who will be assigned to your account, in addition to hiring methods, training, and operational standards. Check for a solid knowledge foundation and a personality that is compatible with a potential collaboration. Remember that this person may be working side by side with you to build and manage your security program. As a person and as a security expert, you want to feel at ease in them.

You should look into management methods and possibly establish some ground rules in addition to deciding who will be your manager. Some clients prefer frequent communication. Some people prefer to be left alone. Some people prefer email, while others will not accept anything less than face-to-face meetings. It is not rare for a relationship to fail due to the manager’s inability to determine the client’s genuine needs. Keep them guessing.

Examine the manager’s security history. Be wary of career managers who have stumbled into security by accident.
Examine management style and interpersonal communication.
Make sure you feel at ease with the manager.
Make your expectations clear. Any pushback to these expectations should be taken seriously.
Security Policies and Procedures for Professionals

All too often, before even interacting with a potential client, vendors have already established a number of policies and procedures that apply to all of their officers. Vendors frequently decide what is safe for them in terms of liability or what their officer pool can handle.

Scenario

The maintenance of a downtown urban mall is outsourced to a property management agency. The center also has a hotel and a number of bars and restaurants that provide alcoholic beverages.

The management business first desired a security team capable of dealing with the undesirables that come with living in a city. The client required police to be trained on the use of force as well as other methods for dealing with problematic individuals.

The vendor claimed that the security department’s best job was to act as a preventative rather than a reactive force. The continued to imply that police should handle incident response.

To the client, this made sense. Unfortunately, smart phrasing misled the client. The vendor had made certain that his employees would not be dealing with any potentially explosive circumstances. As this was a significant benefit to the vendor, the client was forced to watch as problems that could have been handled quickly by the security professionals they had contracted for continued to disturb the mall while they awaited police response.

Based on an actual account, the vendor had preconceived views about how security should be handled across all accounts in this circumstance. Unfortunately, the method was not the best fit for the client’s demands in this circumstance. On the other end of the scale, where certain vendors insist on a high-profile, proactive strategy when a more modest presence is needed, the same issue arises.

Ideally, you’ll locate a provider who understands your requirements and will tailor the application to meet them. If this isn’t a possibility, make sure you choose a vendor whose security vision matches your site’s requirements.

Pay Scales for Security Professionals

When it comes to designing a security program, wage rates are the most important consideration. Limiting wage rates is the greatest method to keep security costs under control. However, before you do so, make sure you assess your program’s wage needs in terms of officers, and that the pay rate you choose allows you to recruit and retain quality individuals.

When deciding the proper compensation level for police assigned to your site, you have two options. The first step is to assess your geographic market. The Department of Labor is usually a good source of market data. This will give you a wide range of wage data for the security profession as well as other similar occupations. The second approach is to merely evaluate the recruiting base of contract companies. Do you want the finest that the company has to offer, given its recruiting base? If that’s the case, you’ll want to be at the very top of their pay scale. If you’re okay with being in the center, a middle-of-the-road pay scale will suffice.

Whatever method you use to analyze pay scales, keep in mind the job you’re asking cops to complete. You want to make sure that the compensation scale you choose allows the contact agency to recruit and retain top talent. Security officers are frequently compensated on par with custodial workers. The duties and responsibilities you assign to security employees will, in most cases, be significantly bigger and need far more professionalism than those assigned to your cleaners. It’s only natural that you’d want to spend more for security guards in order to attract professional guards who can protect your property and people.

Rates for Professional Security Services

When done by qualified pros, security pricing is nothing more than the application of a formula. While the formula is sophisticated and intricate, it is still a mathematical equation. A bill rate is calculated by adding real costs, expected costs, and profit expectations.

Following that, the vendor must estimate these charges and factor them into the bill rate. The issue here is that none of these costs are genuinely quantifiable. Nobody knows how much overtime will be used until the end of the year. Nobody knows for sure how much turnover will cost and how much that component will cost.

The next step is to analyze all of these expenditures before calculating the proposed bill rate. This will leave you with the profit the vendor is hoping to make. We’re all aware that the vendor’s goal is to make money. That is the goal of the company. Which is a better deal if one vendor charges $24.00 per hour and invests $12.00 per hour in the product, while another vendor charges $25.00 per hour and invests $18.00 per hour in the product? It is critical that you examine the cost breakdown to determine exactly what you are getting. Take into account the base wage, training costs, and even the uniform quality.

Examining the markup or percentage of the bill rate that is passed on to the officers in the form of remuneration is a simple approach to do this. If you were to study a textbook on how to establish a security firm, the number would most likely be 67 percent. This means that the cops should receive 67 percent of the bill rate. The officer would be paid $10.00 per hour if the bill rate was $15.00. This leaves a total of 23% for business expenses and 10% for profit. Assuming everything goes according to plan for the company. Smaller businesses may find it difficult to maintain the 67 percent ratio because their costs per hour of service are often greater. However, if this figure falls between 50 and 55 percent, or even lower, the vendor is most certainly making a huge profit.

This simple calculation can help you determine whether the proposed bill rate is reasonable or skewed toward exorbitant profits.

Summary

You want to be sure you’re obtaining a high-quality security package that meets or exceeds your expectations. You wish to get it at a reasonable cost. You need a business that will work with you to establish this program. You want policemen who are capable and competent. You want your employees to be adequately trained. You want a competent security recruiting program that will provide a high-quality officer base and enable for the replacement of departed officers. You need a vendor management staff that is security-savvy and dedicated to your program.