Post Analysis: Security post inspections are a necessary part of any security business’s day-to-day operations.
Unfortunately, many security companies fail to conduct effective inspections – resulting in lost accounts that are costly to their bottom line. This article will look at what post-inspections look like in most companies. How to make them more effective to get, keep, and grow your customer base.
The Reality of Post Analysis Today
Most companies simply use security post inspections as a way to see who’s sleeping on the job or not at their post. They send a supervisor to a random post, unannounced, with the hope that they’ll catch a guard clearly slacking off.
With all this focus on guard accountability, there’s a missed opportunity to use the security inspection as a way to improve your service offering.
Plus, using post analysis as a “gotcha” tool puts you in a confrontational setting with your guards, rather than having you both be on the same team trying to improve your security services. Inspections should be about establishing and maintaining internal standards and customer standards. So, rather than just ensuring guards meet the minimum requirement of being present and awake.
Establishing Internal Standards
Whenever I conducted a post-analysis, I would start by checking in on the officer personally, making sure they were doing alright, and establishing that we’re on the same team. After that, I’d ask the following questions:
- How is the schedule working out for you?
- Do you like the other team members?
- How viable are the pass down & BOLO (Be On the Look Out) notes from the previous officer(s)?
- Are you able to come in 5 minutes early to relieve your team member on time, and are you getting relieved on time?
- Does your team provide good information and is everyone communicating and working well together?
- Are keys or equipment getting misplaced?
- Are you developing good relationships with clients or visitors on-site?
- Do you comfortable using the guard tour system?
Past checking in with your security officers, creating and maintaining a security checklist will clearly communicate to officers. Then, when a post-analysis needs to happen, everyone involved in the inspection will know what standard of service has expected based on the security checklist.
Establishing Customer Standards
The best way to make sure customer requirements are being met is to actually walk the property with your officer.
Make sure that you already know what the post order requirements are. So, you don’t want to be in a position where you have to ask the security guard what needs to be done, as that might cause the field teams to lose some respect for you.
By showing up and walking the site with your guard, you demonstrate your understanding of what he faces in the field, your appreciation for his effort, and the importance you place on the incident reports he sends back to the office.
On the customer-facing side, showing them exactly what your guards are doing on-site by sharing security checklists through a client portal is a simple way to maintain communication, transparency, and trust.
Prepare For Inspections
Preparation is absolutely critical to ensuring your post-analysis is conducted as effectively as possible.
You can’t just show up randomly and hope to conduct effective security post-analysis. So, you want to keep a calendar to make sure you’re hitting all sites regularly, and prepare your route at each site ahead of time. Make sure in this scheduling that you leave time for emergencies or critical issues.
Show up with previous Daily Activity Reports (this is easier if you’ve already gone paperless with an incident reporting software like Silvertrac) so you can walk through them with officers.
Lastly, try not to rush post-analysis or, if you do have limited time, make sure you tell officers so they can bring up any pressing issues right away.
Clear lines of communication are critical in the security industry, and that’s what post-analysis should really be about. Rather than just checking to make sure officers aren’t sleeping in the car. So, use them as an opportunity to communicate standards to your guards, and for them to communicate any issues on-site to you.
Post Security Analysis Skills You’ll Need to Be Successful
Before you decide to hire a guard, be sure each candidate possesses these important security guard skills. For even more qualities a successful security guard should have, read more here.
They all boil down to the individual’s ability to serve your clients and protect the public while also maintaining a professional aura. The moment they don that uniform, lives are in their hands. There is no time for slacking off.
You can’t put a price on the security of your business. Hiring a security guard is the smart thing to do, while security systems have a role to play; they can’t protect humans in emergencies.
If you’re looking for a commercial security company to protect your business then look no further than Lighthouse Security Service. The company is a licensed/insured private security agency that provides protection to many companies, hotels, and so on. Our security services are having in-depth training to handle various scenarios that can come up on the job.
Make your business protected by contacting Lighthouse Security today and get assistance with any of your business’s security needs.
