Thirty years ago the security industry was perceived as a dead end job that would involve security personnel working unsociable hours with a lack of training facilities or career development, writes Jason Saunders.
Historically the employee would come from the ranks of the unemployed and would use the role as a stop gap whilst looking for better prospects. The security sector is now a multi billion pound industry that can offer a rewarding career both for the contracted employee as well as the in house employee.
In the current climate the security manager can attain qualifications both on a voluntary basis by seeking out qualifications on offer from various teaching outlets, or be supported by their organisation if it identifies a need for the right calibre of person to be aligned on the relevant risk course.
Nationally acceptable standards have been produced which can be corporately or voluntarily expanded, depending on the specific business activity, to meet the immediate business requirements of those who need to include additional material within their own programmes. Corporate culture is accepted as a criteria that exists outside the bounds of specialist career training, but is still a requirement for all corporate employees
Today’s global security market is estimated to be worth some €100 billion (2011 figure) with around two million persons employed worldwide. The EU security market has an estimated market value in the range of €26 billion to €36.5 billion with around 180,000 employees (2011 figures). Brussels, 26.7.2012 COM (2012) 417 final.
Within the 180,000 employees inevitably this will be made up of security officers of all different backgrounds and cultures with different levels of education and grades, and subsequently managers, so it is crucial the people that come into the industry are given the opportunity to grow within their business and understand what training courses are available to hone their skill set, and to learn.
One of the key milestones in the security industry was the introduction of the Security Industry Authority (SIA). The organisation is responsible for regulating the private security industry. They are an independent body reporting to the Home Secretary, under the terms of the Private Security Industry Act 2001. Their mission is to regulate the private security industry effectively; to reduce criminality, raise standards and recognise quality service, and their remit covers the United Kingdom.
The SIA have two main duties. One is the compulsory licensing of individuals undertaking designated activities within the private security industry; the other is to manage the voluntary Approved Contractor Scheme, which measures private security suppliers against independently assessed criteria.
The current day security manager has a responsibility to keep up to date with relevant changes in acts or legislation, and be able to if necessarily to implement this into their organisation or communicate changes to those as appropriate. There are a lot of materials at the disposal to UK security manager, and businesses can benefit from an informed manager and in turn can be updated on the latest trends or changes within the industry so that they remain compliant with legislation whilst protecting brand image.
Whether the security manager’s role is in the contract or in house sector the skill set needed by today’s manager differs very little. Although by no means exhaustive below is arguably nine main skills a security manager must demonstrate so that they can be seen as credible in their respective role, and indeed the individual remains a point of contact for questions and to give answers to his Subordinates, peer group or upper management.
1. Communication
There’s a lot of communication when you’re a security manager, you have to communicate with each of your employees, you have to communicate “sideways” with your co-workers and customers, and you have to communicate upwards with your own manager or executive. You need some substance in the communication, and you need to have something worthy of being communicated, but substance isn’t enough, if you know what you’re doing and can’t properly communicate it to anyone else, then you’ll never be seen as a credible manager.
2. Listening Skills
This is a part of communication, but I want to single it out because it’s so important, some security managers get so impressed with themselves that they spend much more of their time telling people things than they spend listening. But no matter how high you go in the management hierarchy, you need to be able to listen, it’s the only way you’re really going to find out what’s going on in your organisation and department, and it’s the only way that you’ll ever learn to be a better manager.
3. Commitment to the truth
You will find that the higher you are in the management hierarchy, the less likely you are to be in touch with reality. Managers get a lot of brown-nosing, and people tend to sugar-coat the news and tell managers what they want to hear. The only way you’ll get the truth is if you insist on it, listen to what people tell you, and ask questions to probe for the truth, develop information sources outside of the chain of command and regularly listen to those sources as well, make sure you know the truth — even if it’s not good news.
4. Empathy
This is the softer side of listening and truth, you should be able to understand how people feel, why they feel that way, and what you can do to make them feel differently. Empathy is especially important when you’re dealing with your customers, and the security manager will always have customers, customers are the people who derive benefit from the work the manager does.
5. Persuasion
Put all four of the preceding skills together, because the security manager will need them when they try to persuade someone to do something they would like done, you could describe this as ‘selling’ but it’s more general, whether they are trying to convince their team to give them better effort, or you ask your own boss to give you a bigger budget, or your customers to agree to something you have given advise on, your persuasion skills will be need to be polished.
6. Leadership
Leadership is a specialised form of persuasion focused on getting other people to follow you in the direction you want to go; it’s assumed that the leader will march into battle at the head of the army, so be prepared to make the same sacrifices you’re asking your employees to make.
7. Focus
The key to successful leadership is focus, you can’t lead in a hundred different directions at once, and so setting an effective leadership direction depends on your decision not to lead in the other directions. Focusing light rays means concentrating the light energy on one spot, focusing effort means picking the most important thing to do and then concentrating your team’s effort on carrying it out.
8. Division of work
This is the ability to break down large tasks into sub-tasks that can be assigned to individual employees; it’s a tricky skill, and ideally you want to figure out how to accomplish a large objective by dividing the work up into manageable chunks. The people working on each chunk should be as autonomous as possible so that the tasks don’t get bogged down in endless discussion and debate, you also have to carefully assess each employee’s strengths, weaknesses and interests so that you can assign the best set of sub-tasks to each employee.
9. Administrative and financial skills
Some security managers have a budget, and they have to be able to set the budget and then manage to it, they will also have to deal with hiring, firing, rewarding good employee performance, dealing with unacceptable performance from some employees, and generally making sure that their employees have the environment and tools they need to do their work. A lot of security managers try to steer away from conflict with their direct reports, but hiring and dealing with employees on a day-to-day basis is one of the key skills to give you the best, happiest and most productive employees.
Conclusion
The above skills go some way in explaining some of the things you’ll need to learn before you become a successful security manager, you can probably become a manager without having all of these skills, but you’ll need all of them to be really successful and to get promoted to higher levels of management.
For every one of these skills, there are various levels of performance, no one expects the security manager to be superior at every one of these skills, but they should be aware of all of them, and they should do everything they can to learn more about each skill. Some of that learning can come through education, as mentioned earlier, either through the security manager embarking on a self education courses being advertised from external risk companies or universities, and also from their own organisations Human Resource or learning and development department, who can formulate Individual Development Plans (IDPs) that will help make today’s security manager a more rounded individual whilst identifying training needs. But much of the learning will come through experience, trial and error, and a good security manager will learn from his or her mistakes and try not to repeat them.
About the writer
Jason Saunders is a regional loss prevention manager working in the clothing retail sector and has been for 22 years.
