SECURITY PERSONNEL:
Having been involved in the manned security field for a considerable time before concentrating on my investigation business I have strong views regarding Security personnel.
I believe that the security industry in the UK is seriously flawed for several reasons, many of which result in the appallingly low standard of personnel.
1. The pay structure is too low.
2. Training is inadequate.
3. The status of security personnel is low
4. The quality of available personnel is woefully low.
Security officers in the UK tend to be employed as 'scape goats'. Someone to blame for the petty pilfering by staff, the mismanagement of stock, the lack of insurance cover etc.
Some of the largest insurance company now have a term known as 'End of contract syndrome' whereby a company, say a building contractor, employs a Security company to supply a guard on a large building site. All appears to go well until the building is completed and the site agent has to explain where the few thousand missing bricks are and the timber, the doorframes, the glass etc. He knows full well that several of his foreman have built their own extensions with site materials but who gets the blame at the end of the contract ? The Security guard !
The low rates of pay that prevail in the industy has meant that most companies from the Securicors and Group Four's down to the one man band with 2 guards and a mangy dog are scraping the bottom of the same barrell for virtually unemployable people who see security guarding as a way of doing nothing and getting paid for it.
Security guards are dissmissed as a waste of time by many Police officers, treated as dirt by many employers and used as a last resort by many clients. It is no wonder that the industry stuggles to achieve reasonable rates of pay when nobody really wants them on their premises in the first place.
Vetting by most employers is pathetic and will remain so until a National department is set up to carry out CRO checks on potential guards, training by some companies is non-existent and the whole industry needs to be sorted out once and for all ... but I bet it doesn't happen in our lifetime ! |
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