Everyone in the industry recognises the need for well-rounded and effective training programmes, but security companies are forever doing themselves – and their customers – a disservice when it comes to supervisory and management training.
Since buying decisions often centre on a given bidder’s on-costs, it’s easy to see why so little funding is being channelled into producing the ‘managers of tomorrow’. Managers who can communicate, lead from the front, build excellent working relationships with their staff, who know about information management and are commercially aware.
Tavcom Training is one of the UK’s leading security systems training and advisory companies for managers and operators of all types of security installation and systems, the majority of its courses being actively endorsed by SITO or the International Professional Security Association.
The company spent much of last year building an interesting and varied portfolio of courses for 2001, covering many of those areas mentioned. Of particular interest to managers will be the operational training course covering Disaster and Emergency Awareness. Tavcom points out that participants will discover "how to react professionally in emergencies, learning how to prepare a set of actions and procedures that will minimise disruption and allow a speedy return to normal operations".
Course content covers how to define an emergency, communicating accurate information when under pressure and techniques for officer debriefing.
How To Stay In Business, meanwhile, is directed at owners and managers of small-to-medium-sized enterprises with a turnover of up to GB pound 2 million. It deals with the management of resources and people, and covers legislation awareness and compliance.
Data protection, selection and vetting of staff, customer care, managing budgets, debt control, invoicing and codes of practice all come under scrutiny in this two-day course, which can either be held at Tavcom’s Training Centre or at your own premises.
Interestingly, security managers might also learn some rather surprising facts about the serious threat they may face from hidden eavesdropping devices – by enrolling on the specialist Counter Eavesdropping (Debugging) training course.
This is an ideal course for managers who want to learn how to recognise bugs – both old and new – and gain the necessary skills to carry out basic physical ‘sweeps’ for them.
On top of the basic courses, Tavcom also runs a specialist security seminar. Badged as the Security ABC, you can learn how to achieve ‘best value’ in the selection of CCTV and access control systems. The seminar also covers internal and external detection systems, the law and you (encompassing the Data Protection and Human Rights Acts).
