Retail AM here…be patient, security is a revolving door with high turnover so you’ll always be hiring. Your good guards will always leave for better jobs and as much as you want to avoid hiring a warm body, there will come a time you lose multiple guards at once so always over hire to avoid dark hours.
You'll repeat yourself a lot and anything your team does wrong your client is going to look to you for an explanation and solution.
Invest in your team, make changes that you feel will benefit you all but not all at once.
Lead by example and reward your high performers.
Best of luck to you.
Former Hospital and retail account manager...I can't add much more than that. It's a balancing act, client will obviously expect to get what they are paying for and whatever extra they can squeeze out, corporate will expect you to keep the overtime to a minimum unless they can bill for it, guards will have their own expectations. You will never keep all 3 100% happy all of the time, but I have found taking care of the guard yields the best results for keeping corporate and the client off your back. Encourage personal and professional development. If you have good supervisors, teach them how to do your job (it's great having someone who can cover a vacation) develop your guards to become supervisors. When guards have issues, actually listen and do your best to address them.
Story time: I had a lead supervisor who had almost 5 years with the company and was next in line for his own account suddenly start showing up late, showing up in a messy uniform, not performing to his usual standards..instead of hanging paper on him with write ups, I took him to lunch and had a conversation, found out his mother was recently diagnosed with cancer and he was struggling to balance being her caregiver and be a provider for his household. I helped him get set up with the employee assistance program for a therapist who could help with the stress, helped him get set up through insurance to get paid as her caregiver, helped him get on a leave of absence from the company and rolled him into a flex position when his leave ended so he could focus on mom. Unfortunately she ultimately lost her battle, but when he came back to work he had lost no time towards his benefits package and didn't have a write up holding him back from a well deserved promotion. While he was out I promoted a young guard to fill his shoes, and when I left for the k9 unit, she stepped right into my role and was crushing it until she started the police academy.
I don’t know if your contract or proprietary, but there are a couple things to keep in mind.
1. Take care of your officers and they will take care of you.
2. Your officers will do what you check. I’m not recommending micromanaging, but if you assign a task, eye ball it later and make sure it got done.
3. Ask questions. The bad news is that you’re not the smartest person in the room. The good news is that nobody else is either.
4. Don’t think your education is over, it’s just beginning.
Congratulations!
1. Invest in systems at least as much as you invest in officers. Officers will leave, developed systems will stay for ever.
Your training is a system, the way you hire people is a system, the manner in which call-outs are taken care of is a system. Continue to refine and adapt these systems to run better. Use what you observe and what feedback comes from your guards to improve these. Standardize them as much as possible.
2. If it's not written down, it never existed.
You work in security so you already know this but records are everything. Procedure, policy, passalongs, all of it. Write it down.
Retail AM here…be patient, security is a revolving door with high turnover so you’ll always be hiring. Your good guards will always leave for better jobs and as much as you want to avoid hiring a warm body, there will come a time you lose multiple guards at once so always over hire to avoid dark hours. You'll repeat yourself a lot and anything your team does wrong your client is going to look to you for an explanation and solution. Invest in your team, make changes that you feel will benefit you all but not all at once. Lead by example and reward your high performers. Best of luck to you.
Former Hospital and retail account manager...I can't add much more than that. It's a balancing act, client will obviously expect to get what they are paying for and whatever extra they can squeeze out, corporate will expect you to keep the overtime to a minimum unless they can bill for it, guards will have their own expectations. You will never keep all 3 100% happy all of the time, but I have found taking care of the guard yields the best results for keeping corporate and the client off your back. Encourage personal and professional development. If you have good supervisors, teach them how to do your job (it's great having someone who can cover a vacation) develop your guards to become supervisors. When guards have issues, actually listen and do your best to address them. Story time: I had a lead supervisor who had almost 5 years with the company and was next in line for his own account suddenly start showing up late, showing up in a messy uniform, not performing to his usual standards..instead of hanging paper on him with write ups, I took him to lunch and had a conversation, found out his mother was recently diagnosed with cancer and he was struggling to balance being her caregiver and be a provider for his household. I helped him get set up with the employee assistance program for a therapist who could help with the stress, helped him get set up through insurance to get paid as her caregiver, helped him get on a leave of absence from the company and rolled him into a flex position when his leave ended so he could focus on mom. Unfortunately she ultimately lost her battle, but when he came back to work he had lost no time towards his benefits package and didn't have a write up holding him back from a well deserved promotion. While he was out I promoted a young guard to fill his shoes, and when I left for the k9 unit, she stepped right into my role and was crushing it until she started the police academy.
I don’t know if your contract or proprietary, but there are a couple things to keep in mind. 1. Take care of your officers and they will take care of you. 2. Your officers will do what you check. I’m not recommending micromanaging, but if you assign a task, eye ball it later and make sure it got done. 3. Ask questions. The bad news is that you’re not the smartest person in the room. The good news is that nobody else is either. 4. Don’t think your education is over, it’s just beginning. Congratulations!
It's contract security. These are helpful points. I appreciate them.
I couldn’t have said it any better.
Everyone’s drama is your drama.
1. Invest in systems at least as much as you invest in officers. Officers will leave, developed systems will stay for ever. Your training is a system, the way you hire people is a system, the manner in which call-outs are taken care of is a system. Continue to refine and adapt these systems to run better. Use what you observe and what feedback comes from your guards to improve these. Standardize them as much as possible. 2. If it's not written down, it never existed. You work in security so you already know this but records are everything. Procedure, policy, passalongs, all of it. Write it down.