With a New Year comes new resolutions; whether it be weight loss, looking for a new job or exercise, most of us pledge to do something new. With us here at Coverguard Security, it is no different, writes Paula Mathers, Assistant Director at Coverguard.
Our resolutions though are business based and we have decided to move in to security training and are currently advertising a Door Supervisor course within the Milton Keynes area. This is something we looked in to last year after I undertook my Door Supervisor course.
Prior to November 2017, I only had a non-front line license, and so struggled to understand the role from the perspective of our security officers / door staff. As a result, I booked myself on to a local course. The course was run over four days from 8am until 6pm each day and was really intense. Despite being educated to post-graduate level, I actually worried that I wouldn’t pass the exams because it was so full on. I need not have worried; one exam was a guaranteed pass, and the others were so easy that I realistically need not have studied. As a result of how easy I found the course, I contacted the SIA; we had a contact there already because of previous correspondence, and so therefore a direct line to someone who could make a difference. The result was far more than I could have expected – he asked if I would like to be part of re-writing the examinations for the Door Supervisor course, as they were due for review!
Obviously I jumped at this chance to help improve standards across the security industry as a whole; this is a great first step towards something I have been pushing towards for the last couple of years – higher pay for security personnel across the industry. I know I have said this before in my articles, there are so many security officers that senior managers are being forced to drop costs to pitiful levels. The client thinks this is great – they’re getting security for a fraction of what they thought they would. Realistically though, this isn’t great. When you are forced to drop your prices so low, you struggle to hire the better quality / standard of staff because no one wants to work for what you can afford to pay. I refuse to drop to such drastically low prices – I’ve seen quotes to clients from some security companies who wants to charge as little as £7.50 per hour. There is absolutely no way on earth that these companies can be paying their staff the legal minimum wage, but this is what we are faced with on a crazily regular basis. We can’t compete with that and we won’t try to; here at Coverguard, we believe that security personnel are important assets in protecting our establishments and their pay should reflect that.
Working with the SIA to change the Door Supervisor exams will help to improve the quality of officer coming out at the other end of the course. It will reduce the number of officers in total, and therefore give legitimate companies like us more of an opportunity to pay a higher wage across the board. In offering a Door Supervisor training course, we believe that Coverguard Security can be an ambassador for these changes we want to see, setting the stage for those who want to follow our lead.
