guarding
A look into the technologies, services and solutions shaping the market
BEYOND SECURITY
With experience, service and commitment, Commissionaires goes beyond your expectations.
Geoff Dickson President and CEO Victoria Airport Authority
The TourTrax “Proof of Presence”Tracking & Reporting System
The TourTrax system is implemented by installing selfcontained electronic tags (aka Checkpoints) at the various locations Property Maintenance & Security Personnel are required to inspect.
Site Personnel carry a handheld data collection device that reads the unique ID number stored in each Checkpoint visited and records the time and date of the visit. The stored information is later transmitted to an on-line computer database from which comprehensive reports, alerts and notifications can be generated. Depending on the capabilities of the handheld data collection device, additional information, including pictures and Inspection data can also be gathered.
TourTrax Key Benefits:
Liability mitigation
• Protect against law suits with audit trail and historical reports that “prove presence”
ity. This provides them with valuable basic proof-of-attendance information, and an indication of what checkpoints may be overlooked or missed. The Problem
• Defend against liability for on-site injury by recording and tracking incidents and events
• Safeguard against insurance liability coverage increases by reducing the rate of claims
Increased accountability
• Track movement and Inspection Activity of personnel
• Ensure all checkpoints are visited and Inspections done
• Summary reporting available for Risk Management oversight
• Threats to safety are reduced by more comprehensive oversight of activity
Increased productivity & accuracy
• System keeps the personnel “moving”, covering more area is less time
• Clerical errors are eliminated by electronic data collection and reporting
• Handwritten log sheets and manual data entry are reduced/ eliminated, savings hours each day
• Decrease property theft by more comprehensive patrolling
• Decrease maintenance costs by more comprehensive inspections
Compliance Reporting Innovation
Most users of traditional Guard Tour systems rely on Tours and basic activity/coverage reports to review day-to-day activ-
• While Activity, Coverage, and Tour reports provide the basic essentials, they do NOT easily or efficiently show:
• Potential soft spots in security patrols (specific areas consistently not checked often enough).
• Areas that are checked too often/frequently (tying up the Security Officer’s time, and affecting overall productivity and efficiency).
• Whether or not overall compliance expectations for a job site are being met (if areas are not being checked at least X number of times in a given day/month/year).
The Solution
In order to address these issues and “fill in the gaps” in checkpoint performance, we’ve created the Checkpoint Compliance Notifications (exclusively in TourTrax.NET). This powerful feature works outside of (and in conjunction with) Tours, and allows Management to:
• Monitor individual checkpoints, or customized groups of checkpoints and view how frequently they are read within a given timeframe.
• On a Per-checkpoint basis, set custom expectations/guidelines for how frequently YOU want the specified locations to be visited on a Daily, Monthly, or Yearly basis.
• Clearly see in special Compliance Reports which areas are less frequently checked than others- and where areas are being over-checked.
• Be alerted by email and/or the software when users of the system do not meet the minimum expectations you set for them- allowing you to take corrective action and fix the Quality Assurance issues before they become a bigger problem and affect your business.
Canada’s leading provider of security solutions
Maturing in the Guarding Industry
G4S designs & deploys comprehensive security
programs
G4S Canada
1-888-717-4447 (4G4S) solutions@ca.g4s.com www.g4s.ca
Integrated approach to risk management
Innovative security products & services
Optimized, seamless security technologies
Qualified, holistic security audits & assessments
Highly-trained, professional security personnel
Quick-response patrol & mobile services
In the financial services/ banking vertical, G4S provides numerous specialized personnel services, such as bank executive protection, data centre security, and cash operations centre security. G4S also provides customized scorecarding and business review processes developed to serve the business intelligence needs of financial services clients. And, G4S provides integrated access control and IP video systems, along with comprehensive audit and compliance services, to complement and enhance our on the ground personnel. This holistic approach to security services provides our clients with a mature, refined approach to their security needs, and is continuously being refined based on our national and international experience.
Cross-pollination of different streams of security services is the overall direction of the security industry, and guarding is no exception. Technology, professional consulting services, enhanced training and mature account management strategies are thus not options that a provider might choose to consider – they are requirements in order to continue to succeed. Those in the guarding industry who demonstrate leadership, innovation and experience are the ones who will grow into
ronment, the client benefits from the obvious efficiencies gained through a coordinated, consolidated approach, which serves to control costs and enhance security and safety simultaneously on multiple fronts.
On the provider’s side, multiple service lines result in operational efficiencies, whereby personnel deployments are made to best effect. Technological and professional service offerings enhance the value of personnel deployments, creating new opportunities for security personnel to improve their
Canada’s leading provider of security solutions
JD Killeen, CPP is Director of National Sales & Security Solutions at G4S Canada. A 25-year veteran of the security industry, JD specializes in strategic program development and implementation. He has a strong reputation in the industry as a mentor and educator and possesses a solid history of security program development with strong results.
G4S designs & deploys comprehensive security programs
Integrated approach to risk
Integrated approach to risk management
Innovative security products & services
Optimized, seamless security technologies
Qualified, holistic security audits & assessments
Highly-trained, professional security personnel
Quick-response patrol & mobile services
By Paul Carson, Director, Paragon Security
It’s been 28 years since I entered the security market sphere in Ontario, and in that time I have seen many changes both positive and negative. On the positive side are an emphasis on training, a retooling of the security legislation and a reworking of the Citizen Powers of Arrest have occurred. The negative side of the market are politicization of large procurement initiatives in security (examples including the Winter Olympics, G20 and Pan Am Games), the consolidation of the security industry and the inability to effectively police the spirit of the security legislation.
After making that bold and thought provoking opening statement, you would think that I would carry on and chip away at the fabric of our business. But on the contrary, wanted to take this time to speak about what I truly believe is our largest and most valuable assets: OUR EMPLOYEES…
I have found a level of dedication by the rank and file Paragon employee, which needs to be recognized “emerging trend”. Day-in and day-out they get out of bed; during the heat of the summer, the cold of the winter, and all maladies in between they manage to get to their assigned posts and provide to our collective clients a level of service
that can only be described as remarkable.
Paragon has employees, including security guards, that have been with the organization from day one (30 plus years). So how does this happen? How do you command such loyalty from your staff? Well, the answer may be a simple one; we are all a family of Paragonians, if you will. Our successes are the successes of Paragon collectively.
So, to sum it up, our “emerging trends” are employee loyalty… which is a nice trend to have both for our company and the clients that we service day-in and day-out.
My hope is that all security companies can foster this trend, it will help us stabilize the market, improve salaries for the guards and ultimately professionalize the industry as a whole.
Customer Service and Guarding
The general profile of security guarding has changed significantly in the past few decades. Gone are the days when the “militaristic, stuffed shirt behind a desk” type guard was the norm. Increasingly, soft communication skills, high emotional intelligence, and an overall orientation of customer service are more important than an imposing demeanor.
Similarly, in addition to looking for safety and security in our guarding professionals, we are also looking for help in general terms: site advice, directions, assistance, etc. In the many spaces that a security guard works—condominiums, commercial offices, factories, warehouses, public institutions—they have become an auxiliary to the organization to which they are partnered. Further, the guard is often the first person with whom endusers and clients alike come into contact, becoming the primary brand ambassador of the client in the process. It is no surprise then that customer service has become hugely important to clients in almost every space, and a service ‘tone’ that is routinely and consistently stressed in meeting after meeting and RFP after RFP—and for good measure.
The security industry, though, has realized that such an emphasis on customer service, and the soft skills necessary to achieve it, also doubles as a better overall protective strategy. A guard who cares, after all, is more engaged; deterrence is magnified though community-level engagement, fostered relationships, and mutual comfort—the kinds of circumstances that just don’t occur unless the guard on the front lines has a caring, customer service-oriented demeanour.
Productive and useful interactions are part of the value proposition of any security company operating in the 21st century. These interactions absolutely must be warm and positive in nature, if they are not, it threatens the whole security enterprise. Guards must be approachable. They must communicate care.
That said, Justin Ferns, VP Operations of Iron Horse Security expands on how care can be communicated in our industry, “I was touched recently when a resident at one of our buildings called to recognize one of our guards. They did shift work, which left them to do their grocery shopping in the middle of the night. Our guard is usually on patrol when they would come in, their hands full with bags, which they’d have to set down in order to use card access. This resident told me that one early morning they were later than usual and our guard happened to see her on the tail end of their patrol. They opened the door and pressed the elevator button for the resident, which was very nice, but the next time our guard was there again to do the same thing. That’s the huge difference in impact customer service has to an organization, and really, to peoples’ lives. I think that the security industry is waking up to the fact that everybody wins when we have guards who care and take that kind of approach to their jobs.”
The potential gain for both client and security vendor are huge when customer service becomes a main focus. This is not only because of the increasing reality that our guards are emissaries not only for our own brands, but those of our clients, but also because a customer service orientation engenders a level of care and trust between the community and client, which augments the deterrent power of the security program as whole. Any way you look at it and regardless of the space, an overriding emphasis on customer service is of paramount importance.
THE guard new
Securitas, Commissionaires, g4S and Paragon discuss wages, skills, technology, contracts, the competition and more in Canadian Security’s guarding roundtable
To many, the term “security guard” still conjures images of uniformed mall cops. But most aren’t aware of the range of duties frontline security professionals fulfill, nor the degree to which the industry has evolved.
Canadian Security magazine recently assembled a panel of experts from companies known primarily for their guarding services: Christina Duffey, vice-president of operations at Paragon Protection; Tim Saunders, senior vice-president of sales at G4S Canada; John Dewar, CEO of Commissionaires Victoria; and Dwayne Gulsby, president of Securitas Canada. Over the course of an April morning these panelists sat down with moderator Neil Sutton to discuss how the industry has changed in recent years. Not only have guard duties expanded, but technology plays a greater role in their working lives. The panel also discussed advancements in guard training and skillsets as well as several other crucial factors affecting the industry like wages, competition, relationships with first responders and how the “mall cop” image can and should be changed.
Canadian Security: What effect is the minimum wage increase in Ontario having on your business?
Tim Saunders: We’re all in favour of a liveable wage, and we’re all in favour of strategies in terms of creating value that justifies higher rates within our respective client bases. The interesting analysis that became quite compelling for me was maintaining that gap from supervisor to minimum wage. So you bring the bottom up, and the justification is, then you bring the whole employee base up. So that’s one of the analyses we’re looking at now to ensure that we maintain that differential between management, supervisory and then field-level staff. From our perspective, the minimum wage doesn’t affect a large percentage of our overall guard force. But it’s that differential that we’re seeing now,
that compression between management and the front-line forces that I think is the more compelling and interesting issue at hand right now.
“We cannot fear technology because we’re known for guarding. We have to embrace technology on so many fronts.”
—Tim Saunders, G4S
Dwayne Gulsby: I’m sure I speak for everyone at the table: there’s always been a healthy gap between minimum wage and entry-level wages in our respective organizations. As minimum wage rises — and I echo Tim’s comments, we all support that liveable wage and the minimum wage increases — it’s maintaining that gap between that entry-level officer
Tim Saunders, senior vice-president of sales, G4S Canada
Dwayne Gulsby, president, Securitas Canada
workforce because we had a larger wage to offer versus what was the minimum wage then. And that cascades up into the organization. So if it’s a 50-cent differential, now it’s keeping that gap and keeping that moving up in the organization, all the way up to the account manager, supervisory level, as well. That’s where our challenge lies.
John Dewar: There’s a perception of security guards at the lower end, of being not very well trained and being people who couldn’t find a job doing something else. And I think it’s an unfair perception and, as you point out, most of our people are paid higher wages than minimum wages. But [with] the kind of value you have to deliver now, where you’ve got better trained people, you complement the people you have with technology in order to be able to provide the customer with that value.
Christina Duffey: Definitely the increases are going to be felt more outside the GTA than they are inside. But the conversations are happening now with our customers and you really have to work within their budgets. But there are repercussions: potentially, renegotiating contracts mid-contract
business. And when you reduce the coverage, you have to find other things to supplement, whether it’s alarms, or spot checks or whatnot. But the expectation for service is still the same. So you’re going to have to deliver the same but with less. On the employee side as well, it’s not just 75 cents, it’s really 88 cents. You’ve got vacation pay, and taxes and all the benefits that go in place there. But those officers that have moved up through seniority for increases, they’re now working against someone who started yesterday and they’re making the same wage. So potentially, that can lead to turnover at site, and then training, and it’s a cascade effect, for sure.
“The average age of a police officer hired today is 27. Between age 22 and 25, who are they usually working for? Us.”
is, with 60 to 70 per cent of customers, you might be successful with. But there are 30 to 40 per cent of customers you won’t be successful with. Internally, you have to look at that and strategize: now we don’t have that gap anymore, so we’ve got to adjust a little bit our recruiting effort and selection process in order to ensure we keep that level of service acceptable to the customer.
— Christina duffey, Paragon
DG: Organizations will take on a greater risk because the costs are now getting to the point where it doesn’t make sense for them. They don’t see the return on investment. So, they will assign the duties to non-security people, or they’ll just eliminate security altogether. They’ll roll the dice.
Canadian Security: Do customers understand the cost pressure issues?
DG: The answer is yes and no; some do and some don’t. The reality
JD: There are the basic watchman services out there. But a lot of security folks — if it’s access control on your building, like the front desk, for instance, a lot of people have security guards in those kind of positions, particularly if there’s more than one company in the building, someone who can direct, a conciergetype of service. And that security guard, in addition to providing security, is also the first face that people see for all of those companies when they come in. So there’s another value component that you can put in there in terms of the quality of the people you put out. It largely depends on what the customer is looking for. Why has he got a security contract? If it’s so he can satisfy his insurance requirement, you may as well go with the least expensive option. But if you really want security, then it’s a different matter in terms of how much you’re willing to pay for it.
John Dewar, CeO, Commissionaires, Victoria Christina Duffey, vice-president of operations, Paragon Protection
TS: There’s the component of educating that client. Don’t buy it just because you’re checking a box; let’s take a look and define what you believe your risks are and go in and really do the assessment, the analysis. Maybe it’s an integrated solution with cameras, technology and access control, and the guard becomes a minimal part of it. Maybe, it’s a completely different scenario, where you do need a warmgreeting, well-trained individual because they’re the face of your brand, the face of your company.
We, as a company, used to be an RFP machine; we used to reply to everything that came in the door and over the fax machine. And now we’re choosing to be a little more disciplined in where we engage in the client base. It’s just us defining what we want to be and represent in the market.
Canadian Security: How are guards being trained in today’s market and what new skill sets are they acquiring?
JD: There’s a questionable licensing issue. Most provinces, most jurisdictions have some type of standardization, a licensing that guards have to go through. And that provides a basic level of performance that you can get from a security guard. But for a lot of these specialized applications, that licensing doesn’t cover that. It doesn’t cover how to do remote monitoring; it doesn’t cover how to do concierge services. And in fact, we find
we spend probably more than anyone else in additional training on our folks because of the variety of tasks they’re engaged in.
DG: Within the industry, we have provincially mandated training. And I think it’s a fair statement that, along with the Commissionaires, Securitas and the other companies represented, we do have additional training on top of that for all of our security officers, whether they’re dealing with customer service and other aspects of the industry.
But the real meat and potatoes comes down to when you start dealing with customer-specific training. What is that customer looking for us to do? And what kind of training do we need to develop in conjunction with that customer in order to provide a platform for our goals to be successful? So that’s where you get much more granular on your training and very specific to the customer’s requirements.
watchman and take some courses, and then you get the soft skills and you become the day-time, and then you progress and become the fireman. There’s all these different aspects of training as a strategic tool that we need to make sure we’re utilizing as an industry.
CD: The knowledge base in the private sector is exceptionally deep. We’ve got a lot of really good experts that are using the resources, the training, the information out there to build really good training programs. The use-offorce was the catalyst for the training standards, which is only one element of the training programs that we deal with. Customer service and even the intervention-capable, dealing with the mental health issues of individuals in the properties that we’re at, is becoming more and more prevalent.
But there needs to be that better partnership with the ministry, certainly in Ontario, where they are tapping into the private sector. Too often, they go to law enforcement as the experts or those that we pull in to help set and talk about guidelines.
“You’re not going to get a Phd psychologist for $10.75 an hour. So you have to manage that expectation, and that’s
part of that discussion.”
— John dewar, Commissionaires
TS: Training is strategic for us. It allows us to give a career path; it allows us within our company to challenge individuals and keep them engaged in the industry. So you go from a night
JD: If you’re dealing with specialized health requirements, for example, there’s a lot of sophisticated skills that people need, whether it’s sociological/ psychological understanding of what you’re dealing with. And, on the other hand, “we’re hiring a security guard, so we want to pay him minimum wage.” You’re not going to get a PhD psychologist for $10.75 an hour. So you have to manage that expectation, and that’s part of that discussion.
DG: I would agree — and echo Christina’s comments in reference to the Ontario ministry. They tend to operate
in a vacuum and not to tap into the expertise they have at their doorstep, and sometimes it baffles me. With certain decisions or regulations that come out, you can understand where they’re trying to go. But there’s many different ways they could have got there that would have been smoother inside the industry. I think they’re missing a significant opportunity to further and more greatly engage the industry as they start going through that decision process, that review of a policy or procedure that would affect us directly.
Canadian Security: What are the opportunities for more public sector or municipal roles in security?
TS: Certainly, I have a strong belief that there is a role for us in those municipal, in provincial roles. It’s a question of getting that market to move, from my perspective, and also earning the right to become recognized as having the ability to participate in key roles. I think it’s a process; I think it’s taking some time; we’re making headway. We talk about parking enforcement; we’re talking about manners in which we can participate and contribute at the municipal government levels and prove our value.
We talk about making that leap into court house environments and that kind of thing. But we recognize those are significant roles with significant risk. I think we need to make sure we create the right profile against those roles; we train appropriately. And it’s not always about saving money. It’s about doing it more efficiently and more effectively.
CD: There’s been a trend for a while for public-private partnerships. Looking internationally, in Europe — it’s proven — Sweden, Switzerland and even our neighbours to the south, the U.S. There are so many great examples of where that is already in play. And the opposition is, you’ll get poor service, or they won’t be able to train up to the level that a law enforcement or public person would be able to. And it’s been
debunked all the way through. So it’s just a matter of time, and it’s a matter of having those conversations and then having someone willing to go into it. But there is the need to have some wage regulation to ensure that the appropriate standards are in place for that specialized training that needs to occur with those types of relationships.
DG: What we’re talking about is not taking over core police duties. What we’re talking about is allowing police and sheriff departments to get back to their roots and get back to their core duties and take the soft duties away from them.
As time has gone by, we’ve seen the expansion of those departments to the point now where there’s a lot of money being spent where officers, or sheriffs’ deputies, are performing administrative duties. It doesn’t make sense. As there’s more and more pressures on municipalities as far as budgets go, the more and more focus gets put on this subject. The greater challenge is the union side of it, and I can understand that.
pattern; we’re doing what we need to do to try to promote what we believe is the right thing to do — not just for our companies but, at the end of the day, it’s for the taxpayers as well.
JD: We’ve done quite a bit of research on this. There are two aspects to what you’re saying. One is the public perception of what is core police work and what police should be doing. And the public is less concerned about costsaving than they are about ensuring public safety, and they don’t want to sacrifice public safety for the sake of saving costs. So when we talk about the skyrocketing costs of police services, and all the rest, the general public — maybe until they get their tax bill — doesn’t really see that as the issue. [It is an issue for] the police force, municipal managers and elected municipal officials and those folks.
But the other side is, what does resonate with the public is being able to take those jobs — police officers, sworn members — and releasing them from those administrative functions and those things that you don’t need a badge and a gun to do [and] putting those people on the job doing public safety where you do require those specialized skills. We probably don’t need a police officer standing by a cement truck in downtown Vancouver directing people to drive around the cement truck.
“The real meat and potatoes comes down to when you start dealing with customer-specific training. What is that customer looking for us to do?”
— dwayne Gulsby, Securitas
We all benefit if outsourcing does start to occur. But I also see the other side of the coin, as well, with the unions protecting jobs. We’re in that holding
CD: For many years, you saw the private sector reaching out to law enforcement leadership, trying to get a conversation going. Over the last decade we’ve seen they’ve been reaching out a little bit more. We all know that, at some point, they may have a second career, so they’re starting to see certainly in the leadership some of the value to having some of
those security skills and some of the knowledge. You see departments that have CPTED, an officer assigned to that just within the department. You see them getting certified in security designations. And that’s new. That was never the case. Certainly, we’ve all been to meetings recently where, for G20 and Pan Am, they’re reaching out; they’re saying, we can only do so much. We’re going to need the private community to come in and help us bridge the gap, regarding everything that’s going to happen during those events. So, it’s moving in the right direction.
Canadian Security: How much of that do you think is police resources becoming strained, and how much of it is security side meeting that challenge?
CD: It’s both. Budgets are getting smaller and smaller on the public side, and the professionalization of the security industry has definitely gone in the right direction. So there’s a lot more value that’s being seen from the community in terms of, how do you have them work together?
JD: I think there’s a lot more stakeholders in this than people at first perceived, and it’s an overused term. There’s clearly the police; there’s clearly those of us that are in the security industry that think we can do something to support them. But there’s also those municipal, elected decision-makers; there’s also those people that are on the police boards that have a different function altogether; and there’s the general public. All of these different folks have different perceptions.
TS: I think your question is an interesting one because the environments we’re deployed in, as private providers of security, are far more complex than they ever were. And we’re asking our guards to be polite, be presentable as a foundation and have observational skills. But we’re also asking them to have computer skills. We’re also asking them to do things that were never expected
of them previously. We’re evolving. The skills, the people we’re including in our industry now are far more advanced; it’s a far more complicated environment. We’re stepping up as an industry and really delivering great service.
CD: Also, the average age of a police officer hired today is 27. Between age 22 and 25, who are they usually working for? Us. So it’s kind of like a grassroots movement, where we’re actually populating future police departments. They definitely favour the skills that we’re training and that we’re doing. And they come in proven; they can handle those environments because they don’t have that much time to go from here to here through the training they go through at the police schools.
TS: And that’s positive churn for us. That’s a compliment. When we have guys churn out of our business into the public sector policing environments. That’s what we consider a good performer.
Canadian Security: A lot of vendors are talking about “guard-replacement technology.” What impact is that having?
JD: I don’t think we see it as “guard replacement technology,” we see it as “guard augmentation technology.” What the technology does is allow people to be more effective. You may need fewer people to provide security to a site, but you need people. And what comes along with that is, those people that you do have have to be
better trained, have to be all of those things we were talking about earlier. Technology isn’t an answer by itself; technology is a tool and people use tools. You can’t just have the tool there by itself. The tools are there to augment the performance of people. And I don’t see it as replacing them; it’s making them more effective.
DG: I said earlier that it is our responsibility to be that security professional for our customers. And there have been countless times when we identified technologies that would either enhance the security officer’s performance or introduce a costreduction opportunity for our customers. That type of technology certainly does.
TS: We cannot fear technology because we’re known for guarding. We have to embrace technology, on so many fronts. To John’s point, technology in the hands of our guards can create a better security environment: from a health and safety perspective; how we measure our success in front of our clients in terms of tracking our guards — were they there when they were supposed to be there? — and report-writing on technology. So we have to as companies adapt and explore and embrace technology however we can to create value for our clients. So there’s, how do we make our guards better and more efficient, safer and create better value for our clients?
CD: The new generation is tech savvy. And we’re a 24-hour society, a mobile society today. Clients need to know in real time events and things that are happening. The days of the paper and the pencil and filling out the reports are still there, but there’s that learning curve as well.
Part of it is the evolution of the industry, but part of it is because you have business leaders managing guard companies as well. We’re thinking of it from an ROI perspective for them as well. And clients are demanding it. They’re demanding us to come to them with more than just one tool.
