Imagine the scenario. Your alarm clock sounds at 5.30 am. You awaken with difficulty because you’d been working the nightshift all week for the past seven days. Time for a quick wash and shave, grab a piece of toast and dash off to catch the bus and then tube to work, leaving the family sound asleep.
You arrive at work at around 6.50 am, and exchange pleasantries with colleagues who are ‘clocking off’ before starting work. At around 8.00 am your client’s members of staff begin to arrive on site, with a flood of employees bursting through the doors at 9.00 am.
You work through the morning, snatch a quick 30-minute break for lunch and then manage to navigate your way through the afternoon. At about 4.30 pm staff begin to leave. Most of them have gone by 5.00 pm, although a few stragglers hang on until 6.00 or 6.30 pm. Having handed over to a colleague, you leave the premises and head for home, arriving at 8.00 pm. Just in time to catch up with one of your children (the other is already in bed) before settling down to supper.
Having talked with your wife, you fall asleep in front of the TV. You’re in bed by 10.30 pm.
Your weekly take home pay is GB pound 270, out of which you need to pay GB pound 80 in rent, plus the electricity, gas and food bills totalling GB pound 85. Then there’s travel costs, clothing and, of course, upkeep for your F-registration Fiesta.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the typical lot of today’s security officer. Is it any wonder, then, that we struggle to fill our job vacancies with quality people?
Without doubt, the most critical posts within any security company are those filled by the uniformed officers and operational managers. As First Security’s Jonathan Levine rightly pointed out in November’s Guarding Watch column (‘Cometh the hour’, p61), recruitment of employees in such categories has been notoriously difficult. We need to examine why that is, and look for possible solutions.
Trends in officer recruitment
Thirty years ago, officers enjoyed a forty-hour week, good training and allowances and benefits were – in the main – campaigned for and won by a union. In turn, the customer benefited from stable, satisfied security staff who were well-trained and supervised. That said, they were also expensive, staid and inflexible in their working practices.
Twenty years ago the industry experienced radical changes. Officers now had to work a sixty-hour week at a fixed hourly rate of pay. Two days of classroom-based training became the norm, and vetting was carried out over a twenty-year period. The service was less costly to the end user. The guarding role became flexible and dynamic, and supervision levels were adequate. However, although industry standards began to creep in the quality of employed officers began to tail off – and staff turnover increased dramatically.
So to the year 2001. We remain with the sixty-hour week, staff are still paid by the hour and that pay is tied to the clients’ sites. Even at three days, the Basic Job Training remains inadequate. Vetting is now called screening, and has been reduced to a ten-year check. Any employee benefits that might have been are now dissipated as margins have halved during the last two decades. As SITO’s research shows, attempts to improve the numbers of qualified security officers remain a struggle.
Traditionally, Legion Security has always recruited from the armed forces, but even here numbers have dwindled. Twenty years ago we began to advertise for staff in both national and local newspapers and job centres, at the same time encouraging our own members of staff to introduce their friends to the industry. That remains the case today. As part of the process we draw up officer specifications and specific job descriptions, and target recommended levels of pay. The difficulty we still face is how to attract the right applicant.
Where would you look if you wanted to do an unskilled job? What do applicants search for?
They seek a living wage, and the minimum number of hours they need to work to achieve that wage. Added benefits are nice, not crucial.
Take a look at comparable jobs. A security officer might typically earn GB pound 336 for a 56-hour week. A postman, on the other hand, will reap GB pound 300 for a 42-hour working week. For a less arduous working week with no night shifts, a postman can earn close to a security officer’s pay. Which option would you choose?
The need for change
Change is now upon us, and that change is legislation-driven. The Private Security Industry Act means that all contract officers will now be licensed. The stakeholder pension has also been introduced. Over a period of time, it’s widely predicted that employers will be forced to contribute a minimum of 3% of salary to all such pensions. There are also increased benefits for maternity pay, as well as new paternity benefits.
We also have the National Minimum Wage, of course (which, it’s predicted, will stand at GB pound 5 per hour come the end of the Government’s current term of office). And there will be the end of the security industry’s ability to exempt itself from the terms and conditions of the Working Time Directive.
Cast your mind back to 1999. The security industry – along with other sectors – was granted a four-year derogation from applying the 48-hour working week. Well, that derogation is due for review in 2003. If the derogation is withdrawn – and there’s every likelihood that it will be – then this will have a significant effect on costs borne by the end user. Rises of up to 33% could be the norm.
For their part, security officers will welcome the reduced hours. For the first time in over two decades the private sector will be capable of attracting workers from comparable industries. An improvement in quality should be realised.
In turn, higher calibre staff and a more stable workforce will mean that the industry becomes far more professional in its outlook. Training will also be recognised as a real benefit to the security service.
In the September edition of SMT (‘All in a week’s work’, pp28-30), Stuart Lowden stated that – when it was introduced – the Working Time Directive offered a golden opportunity for the manned guarding industry to introduce meaningful reform, but that the industry fudged the issue.
Well, the end of derogation – and the period of planning beforehand with customers – is the single best opportunity that this industry has had in over twenty years to improve and develop its members of staff. A perfect opportunity for all concerned to provide the security industry with something it desperately needs – a truly professional reputation.
