Britain puts on big events every summer – sporting, musical, political – that need securing. We visit one of the companies who will once again feature in helping to ensure that millions of people have an enjoyable experience in 2014.
Event security, like so many of the events it secures, is generally a casual-dress sector; one of the exceptions being the awards ceremonies at which Showsec regularly win accolades from the events industry. When we accept Managing Director Mark Harding’s invitation to visit Showsec’s head office in Leicester, the company is glowing with satisfaction at collecting two more awards on successive nights when the events industry gathered in London.
That recognition from industry peers merely fuels a desire to push the bar even higher after ten successive years of record-breaking growth to an operation spanning the length and breadth of the United Kingdom from Bournemouth to Aberdeen and Cardiff to Ipswich.
While it is immediately apparent to us that there is a very calm and relaxed atmosphere within Showsec’s Head Office, do not let appearances deceive you.
The company, like the sector, works tirelessly at enhancing its reputation in terms of the level of service it delivers for a growing portfolio of clients and an increasing number of people – an estimated 25 million of them – across more than 450 venues.
The Showsec image is undergoing major change with the introduction of new uniforms to follow on from a change to a fresher, more modern logo which will be the face of the company. The uniforms are described by the company as a statement of intent, but it is the investment in the people who will be wearing them come the summer months.
Mark repeatedly refers to the fact that what Showsec do “isn’t a magic formula”, but their careful selection, retention and development of staff clearly does the trick when it comes to upholding their status as market-leading crowd management and security specialists.
That career pathway – the online training, the Management Development Programme (MDP), let alone the routine of match SIA-qualified people to 200,000 shifts a year – is what Professional Security is here to ask about.
As if to underline the fact that Showsec are a company very much on the go, we are only in the office which Mark Harding occupies on the top floor of their Leicester headquarters for a few minutes before he whisks across New Walk to a hotel restaurant for lunch; just enough time, in fact, to admire the Magritte among a collection of surrealist reprints of artwork on the walls.
Indeed, his office overlooks one of the most pleasant spots in the city of Leicester, New Walk, and our lunch is only a few footsteps away. Mark breaks off only momentarily to place his order as he talks with pride about the Management Development Programme that has within the past few weeks produced a third area manager from one course in 2010 with Louise Stockden’s promotion in a restructure of the company’s London operation.
This is the latest of many stories which highlight that Showsec have given many people who started out as casual staff the chance to develop career skills and fulfil their potential. It’s only fair to add that other contractors in security and business have developed the kind of e-learning platform which underpins the online training for staff, some for many years.
The company has drawn on external support and expertise in a partnership with the University of Derby Corporate that has yielded a Foundation Degree in Applied Professional Studies in Crowd Management, and there are plans for a Full Degree and possibly even a Masters.
Hence, Mark Harding’s stress on the ‘career pathway’ through the Management Development Programme to supervisor, manager and maybe a successor to the Managing Director himself, many years down the line of course. “We are now in our ninth cohort of MDP,” he says. “It began in 2007 and it has brought through a whole new generation of young, really capable, fully rounded junior management who can shape the way the company develops.”
That pathway begins for those climbing the career ladder on the e-learning platform, helping the company to assess which members of staff have management potential.
“There are about 80 modules on the platform, where people can develop their skills through this process, but also in the classroom,” he says. “There is a balanced approach, it isn’t just one process, but we try to cover all aspects of training on the platform.
“You can avoid the practical drawbacks of classroom work – arranging for everyone, including a trainer, to be in the same place at the same time which is often not easy.
“Online is far more convenient. If, for example, you’ve done a shift, you have got home at 11pm, you are in work mode and you cannot get to sleep straight away.
“You can go through a module. The employer can tell when you have done it and you take tests online to show what you know. So there’s no cutting corners, it is all auditable. While the private security sector, thanks not only to the SIA, has been well able to train entry level officers and event security, the sector and regulator have done less for those officers wishing to progress beyond the regulated minimums.”
Like so much in business, it’s not only what you do, it’s the way you do it. With a workforce of 4,000 or more casual members at peak times during the summer months, the biggest challenge for Showsec is recruiting and then retaining them. You might think – and generations of students have thought – that stewarding events is an obvious or easy way to earn some money, to get yourself through college. On a par with bar work or maybe waiting tables in a restaurant; an appropriate comparison as we take our seats by a window looking out onto New Walk and await our lunch. Nevertheless, the careful selection process and the fall-out along the way means that just one in 14 applicants make it to the point of working their first shift. It’s a conversion rate that Showsec says it would like to improve further, considering the administrative hours that go into that process.
Why then, does the company take such a small proportion of those who apply for jobs? There are a number of reasons, most notably applicants might not complete the form well enough, they are not suitable, they find another job in the meantime, they don’t make it through the training or they do make it through but still fall out. Another important aspect of the selection process is identifying those who have the potential to move up the career ladder with the company. Mark Harding speaks repeatedly about staff loyalty and commitment. “It makes them feel very proud that they are in the top seven per cent of applicants to the company, but then we offer them a pathway. It’s an open process – fair – and accountable to staff.”
It’s no good, however, having MDP or any other training opportunities, unless you tell staff about them, which is why Mark points to communication to such a diverse workforce of more than 4,000 as such a crucial element of increasing staff retention. He counts it off on his right hand with his left: “The company runs staff interaction evenings, the staff portal, where they can get information about an event and there are briefings online about festivals, including visuals,” he says. “Staff can tell the company their availability and see their earnings online.”
The company can point to further success in terms of staff engagement; a survey that went out to all the casual workforce and produced 1,300 responses from over 4,000. “That’s stunning,” beams Mark. “What a stunning result and as a consequence we are trying to listen to concerns, understand how they want to be recognised.” As Mark later points out: “That is different to being rewarded.” But each matters when it comes to recruiting and keeping staff, in any field.
A passing, yet telling remark of Mark’s is that company bonuses are based on staff retention; a contrast with bank bonuses paid according to sales. “Sometimes people look at the product as the end delivery, and that’s right. But there are so many processes within that end delivery, which we have to look at to ensure the end product. In the end, the client benefits because we retain staff, we retain skills, people become loyal to the company, they want to work for the company and for the clients, so ultimately our product improves.”
While it’s a stereotype to say that an event security person is young, just as it’s a stereotype to say security people are ex-Army, ex-police or ex-Prison Service, like all stereotypes, there is truth in it. It makes sense, for instance that at a rock concert or festival, you have stewards who don’t mind the music. As for Showsec’s staff, use of social media, last featured in the March issue of Professional Security, brings challenges for the company. “But we find by creating social network groups, they are very much self-regulating,” says Mark. “A significant amount of it is just feedback, a great comradeship between the workers’. If someone in the group says something negative, the company addresses it; but so do the group users, giving their alternative views.”
Lots of companies, Mark goes on, actually sub-contract large proportions of their work. “We don’t want that,” he argues. “We want to deliver the product to the client, so we set the benchmark and a standard and the resources equivalent to that standard; we will deliver to that client. With some companies’ business models, they set a standard and sub-contract to lower-level workforces on a very casual, ad-hoc basis, and they get inconsistency.”
In Mark’s words, such a contractor becomes a ‘product delivery service, a resource service, rather than somebody who has infinitely more experience’. Later, dropping in on an MDP course, one of the trainee managers speaks of how – at another company – staff might gather to plan an event, and when they use terms, different staff might mean different things, depending on their background or simply the way things are done or how they were trained. When things go wrong at an event, inconsistency – any number of things – can make bad things worse. Mixed messages can kill.
“Honestly,” Mark Harding holds up his hands, “there’s no magic formula.” And to make a neat break to the conversation, our meals arrive. While we tucked in, I asked about the Manchester Commonwealth Games of 2002, where Showsec was the event stewarding contractor. That was also a way to ask about this summer’s Glasgow Commonwealth Games. Unlike London 2012, which gave the security work to G4S alone, Glasgow has looked to 19 event stewarding and guarding companies to tender, as featured in the January issue of Professional Security. But as guarding and London Olympic training veteran David Evans raised in a letter in the February issue, have the Glasgow organisers, like London’s, simply left it too late for any contractor to be ready in time?!
The obvious question – what Mark Harding made of G4S’ well-publicised shortfall in guards before London 2012 – he does not dwell on. What’s the point?! Showsec interestingly, like some large guarding contractors, decided well beforehand not to go for London 2012 work. Those firms did not want to lose focus on customers, and there was plenty of work available from Games-related sponsors, broadcasters and so on. Showsec has a large contract with Live Nation, and indeed the company secured the one-year anniversary athletics event in summer 2013 at the main Olympic Stadium. But as for Glasgow in 2014, Mark Harding expects differences from London 2012. There’s a different, more relaxed feel to the Commonwealth Games; and they’re not as large as the Olympics.
The unexpected will crop up; Mark recalls from the Manchester Games a cycling team training along the hard shoulder of the M62. Has the event security industry moved on since 2002? “Yes, by a chasm,” he answers, and points to the Security Industry Authority for bringing in regulation, and governance. But has the event sector progressed as well? It has done relatively well in the recession, Mark agrees. He is chairman of the UKCMA (Crowd Management Association). Its main issue is with the incoming SIA business licencing. While he suggests that businesses do accept the new licences, if grudgingly, especially if they see something for their money, he points to UKCMA concerns. Event security contractors, whose staff largely are casual, don’t want to be disproportionately charged for their licence according to staff numbers.
Mark clearly has an appetite for challenging elements of this legislation: “Say you have a full-time member of staff who generates £20,000 of income, or six casual members of staff who generate £20,000 of income. One company pays one premium, another company pays six premiums. You can see the disproportionality. That already exists in the ACS [Approved Contractor Scheme]; what we don’t want is it replicating under the business licencing. We want a fair share of the burden.”
Also, the UKCMA – and it’s fair to say this is a point dogging the SIA all along, and indeed any regulator of business – wants new companies to still be able to enter the industry. A vibrant sector, he suggests, has newcomers that regenerate the sector. Showsec hosted the SIA’s Chief Executive Bill Butler and Head of Transition Christy Hopkins in January to air these issues.
To take the event sector purely, and leave aside security; promoters, even of the biggest and most successful festivals, face risks. Ticket sales may depend on the line-up of bands. The weather, too, can be unpredictable; too much sun or rain can bring hazards.
Risks – which are measurable in money – apply also to sport; notably football. Showsec does work for various football clubs, notably Manchester City. As Mark Harding points out, City, like any Premier League club, have 19 home matches a season. A good season can mean cup and European runs, ending in titles and victory parades: that’s all work for stewarding (and indeed other) contractors, who have to be flexible.
What do clients look for? Mark Harding recalls market analysis it commissioned in 2007. Those surveyed were given options asking why they chose a particular security company. You might think that price came first. Or size of company, or reputation. Mark says: “And do you know what came top: business-personal relationship.”
Hence the company’s staff development – and the care it takes to arrange managers geographically, to provide the proper relationship to clients. That said, Mark does add that IT has really made a difference to the industry, and will continue to: “So over the next decade, I think of all the things that will change the industry, IT will have the biggest influence on how the industry is shaped.”
After lunch, back at Showsec, he showed how.
