Interviews

Securitas on TV

by Mark Rowe

Geoff Zeidler, pictured may have done the whole of the manned guarding sector a service when the Securitas chief exec was an ‘undercover boss’ in the latest series of the Channel 4 documentary, writes Mark Rowe.

You can watch the programme already shown on C4, online on the ‘4 on demand’ part of the channel’s website. See also the Securitas website.

Geoff Zeidler, UK and Ireland country president of Securitas, is on the TV screen. But it’s not the usual him, in a suit and tie. He is wearing spectacles and has a short, greying beard. He is wearing Securitas uniform, including fluorescent jacket; and he is standing at Dewsbury bus station. It is him, but he is posing as Dale James, an unemployed engineer (with SIA badge valid to March 2016) seeking experience. That is the reason given for a camera crew following him for the day. He is, as screened by Channel 4 in July, an ‘undercover boss’ in the documentary series of that name. To strip away the excitable TV language – the chief executives are taking ‘extreme action’ to go undercover in their own organisations – it’s a time-honoured neat ploy, as done by Henry V on the eve of the battle of Agincourt (at least according to Shakespeare). Only by going in disguise does a leader hear what people really think.

The documentary showed Zeidler striding into the multi-national security company’s UK head office at 271 High Street, Uxbridge. As Channel 4 told us, Securitas acquired Reliance Security Services and Chubb, two guarding competitors, so that Securitas took on 12,000 officers (compared with its previous 5,000). Securitas global profits were down; and when a client on the high street or elsewhere has gone bust, you’ve lost its business. Zeidler admitted to camera: “Being a manager who has never worked out in security – going out into the field is going to be really difficult. It’s frightening.” As he said, what mess could he make, how stupid could he look? Forty minutes later (in TV time), he was doing the rounds at Dewsbury bus station, knocking on the ladies’ toilets door to check inside, the regular security officer having earlier said that lesbians go in there. The camera lingered on Geoff checking the cubicle and picking loo roll off the floor.

That’s as personally embarrassing as it got. In corporate terms, at each of the four sites Geoff does a day’s shift at, staff set out shortcomings. At the Manchester city centre door, the two security officers Mo and Mario could do with another CCTV camera to cover a blind-spot. At The Priory shopping centre in Dartford, a member of staff spoke of long hours and requests for staff cover gone unheard. At Cirencester branch, when Geoff accompanied a mobile response van, the officer driving spoke of bringing in a new contract, but not getting any commission finding that new work. And lastly at Dewsbury, the regular security officer at the bus station described the Yorkshire town as ‘the capital of lesbians’ (’we have them fighting out here, fighting over each other’).

In short, it made good TV – good for the broadcaster, in that it was interesting viewing. There was much for security viewer to pick up, although in a 47-minute programme (and not including the breaks for adverts) there wasn’t time to dig deeper, even if Channel 4 had a mind to. At the Manchester night-spot, for instance, we were told the door staff (wearing anti-stab vests) are there to deal with fights. If police have to attend too many times, the pub’s licence could be in peril. It shed light on the authorities’ attitude to night-life – drinkers are free to get blotto (the camera showed one woman sitting on the pavement) but if a pub or club lets trouble spill over, so that the police have to intervene – that’s to be avoided. And a theme through the documentary, though never spelled out: though the doormen wished aloud for an extra CCTV camera to help their work, and Julie at the shopping centre wished for relief, surely that is not for the security contractor to decide, but the client?

Did the disguise work, in TV terms or for Geoff to really learn about his company on the ground floor? Not entirely. Charles Beer, the (ex-Chubb) Cirencester branch manager, was sharp enough to spot that ‘Dale James’ was in fact Geoff Zeidler, who was on a photo pinned on the wall behind ‘Dale’. Beer agreed to go along with the deception. The TV documentary makers got the controversy they wanted when a female officer in the rest room (eating a packet of crisps while Geoff drank from a Securitas-branded cup) said: “I used to love this job, until Securitas took it over.” She grumbled that the whole organisation had ‘gone down the plug’. More practically, the officer in the response van showed the torch he had bought himself, as it gave out better light than the one the company supplied. This shone out of the programme – conscientious staff (though if indifferent employees were there, we didn’t see them) making good any equipment or other shortcomings.

His four undercover visits over, Geoff strode back into his Uxbridge office and called a meeting of senior managers. He told them going undercover had made him angry – officers were doing a great job; but he was frustrated about the technology (or lack of it) provided to staff. “We have to make sure they are properly equipped and not wandering around with a £5 torch – it’s a no-brainer.” As for the experience Geoff – ex-public school and Cambridge boat race rower – said: “It’s been a fantastic opportunity for me to really learn very honestly what people think.” The missed sales leads in mobile response? Geoff offered to send the Cirencester officer to company head office Sweden. “Normally I spend my weekends in Sweden, so Sweden is a bit of an improvement,” the officer admitted. The Dewsbury bus station officer who was too bluntly calling a lesbian a lesbian? Securitas would look at language taught to officers – and bring in the police IC codes, to avoid names being racially or otherwise misinterpreted. In case this looked like a criticism of the officer, he was given £500 to give to local charities. And the woman at Dartford shopping centre? Given a stay at a spa. A jarring part of the episode was that – as some of these rewarded officers admitted to camera – they had been summoned to Uxbridge without knowing why; they worried that they were to be told off, or given the sack. Such was the price, it seemed, of Securitas appearing on TV.

Strip away the TV hype (Manchester described as ‘a city plagued by violent gangs and gun crime’) and viewers got a view of private security seldom offered on UK TV – documentary makers usually being interested only in cop-car crashes and shoplifters. You could learn a bit of competitive intelligence: Julie at the Dartford shopping centre did an 11-hour shift; four mobile response officers were responding to 500 premises in a 40-mile radius. Lasting memory? The laughter of Zeidler’s teenage son and daughters and wife Michelle when he appeared in their living room in Securitas uniform of black jacket and grey trousers. A daughter said her father looked ‘thuggish’ – certainly not the impression Securitas want to give, the company (like other guarding firms) having given much time and money to their guards’ clothing. The girl’s human and telling reaction to her father pointed to a gap – in life experience as much as anything – between haves and have-nots, chiefs and ‘coal face’, not only in guarding, but in Britain.

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