The 24th July – we celebrate International Security Officer Day, and pause to recognize the important and infrequently unsung role Security Officers play keep our communities safe. We’ve taken this chance to ponder the question of what makes a decent watchman.
At
Internal Security, we are very clear on what makes an honest security guard; we
live and breathe the pursuit of security excellence. But recently we thought it
would be worthwhile to know what others are saying on the topic.
From
the various lists published online, we compiled an inventory of the foremost
mentioned good watcher qualities. And quite frankly, a number of the results
left us a bit stunned!
And
the results are…
From
most to least mentions, the qualities that featured most prominently among
these lists were (with the amount of mentions in brackets):
Physical fitness/strength (10)
Alertness/vigilance/mind
on the task (10)
Communication
skills (10)
Honesty/integrity
(8)
Judgement
(6) Leading and teamwork (5)
Attitude/motivation
(5)
Training
(5)
Punctuality/Preparedness
(3)
Customer
service (2)
Values/respects
life (2)
Experience
(1)
Low
profile (1)
Professionalism
(1)
We’ve
spent over 12 years that specialize in recruiting Security Officers with ‘the
right stuff’ and developing them to be the most effective they will be.
Knowing
what we now – so seeing the answers our internet search threw up – leads us to
the conclusion that (i) the net certainly doesn’t have all the answers, and
(ii) security providers like us have a job to play in providing greater
awareness of what characteristics good security guards possess.
In
particular, we were surprised that ‘Physical fitness/strength’ featured all
told 10 lists that we surveyed, ranking above ‘honesty/integrity’, ‘leading and
teamwork’, ‘customer service’ and lots of other qualities. Sure, fitness and
strength play a task, but the role of today’s Security Officer is predominantly
in surveillance and conflict de-escalation, and these require a more complex
set of attributes.
‘Judgment’,
or having the ability to reason and to exercise good judgment, was mentioned by
only six out of the ten lists we surveyed. we expect that’s a bit strange.
Exercising good judgment – including the flexibility to de-escalate a situation
– may be a key quality that a security officer must put into practice
regularly, and thus it should be further up the list.
‘Training’
(5) and ‘experience’ (1) ranked poorly relative to several of the opposite
qualities, yet these are things our customers tell us that they have – well
trained and experienced security officers. Perhaps many of the lists saw
training and knowledge as enablers of excellent guard qualities instead of as
qualities in themselves.
‘Punctuality/preparedness’
(3) had us stunned! Surely, turning up for duty on time and well prepared could
be a basic quality of a decent security officer. Reliability could be a
foundation requirement for providing security.
Lastly,
we felt ‘Customer service’ (2) and professionalism (1) were way too low down
within the list. Understanding client’s needs and delivering to them is
integral to providing excellcent security.
Related Term