The security industry is always changing. Security providers today need to keep themselves updated with the ongoing trends and market demand in order to sustain the competition. With private security guards, you have to be more careful if you’re offering the service. Despite the fact that police officers respond to crimes in a matter of minutes, they are rarely on the site as they occur or before they occur. Private security officers, on the other hand, are often able to prevent a crime or warn authorities in time for the incident to be contained. However, in order to do so effectively, security guards must adhere to a number of basic standards and complete a variety of tasks throughout their shift. The guards need to follow the rules and the post orders as specified by the clients.
What are Post Orders?
Security Post Orders are the backbone of any security program. Post orders are your way of communicating with the security officer on duty at your site. They clearly define the duties and actions taken by personnel. Whether the focus is access controls, command centre dispatch protocols, visitor policies, or other disciplines, clearly documented expectations are imperative. Therefore, it is essential that they are written with clear and accurate instructions, outlining duties, responsibilities, and expectations to ensure the officer clearly understands the responsibilities and risks at your site. Additionally, weekly supervisor visits safeguard that written orders are always available, up-to-date, and clearly understood by the officers.
While written post orders are necessary at the site, our technology can deliver updates and targeted messages to security officers through the Officer Reports system before each shift to ensure that they are well informed and engaged.
The Need for Security Post Orders
Whether you have a company-owned or contracted security force, the security post orders must be handled as a “living document,” and their development and upkeep cannot be overlooked. Depending on industry requirements, security posture or policy may change often. When utilising a security service provider, is it apparent who has ownership of the security post orders? Without extensive knowledge of their customer’s rules and access to numerous departments, how can a third party develop successful procedures between two entities? (i.e., legal, HR, EH&S, etc.). The responsibility for keeping post orders updated is shared, but the private security department retains ownership.
Any security operation requires clear documentation and a grasp of procedural responsibilities. An effective set of security post orders does not need to depict every possible circumstance that security could face or to reproduce the business policies verbatim, resulting in a large number of pages. Most of us wouldn’t remember the details of a 280-page document overnight, so don’t expect your security team to do so in the event of an incident. When describing a method or procedure, avoid using long-winded ‘legalese’ and instead use bullet stages, especially if the actions vary based on the situation. People that rely on the material on a daily basis should be able to read it easily and refer to it as needed.
Although your contract with your client covers subjects such as when and how many officers are needed at the site, it is the site post orders that specify the exact duties that your officers should be undertaking. For example, your security staff may be responsible for monitoring and operating a magnetometer as part of the contract. The post orders, on the other hand, will clarify which things are considered contraband and what the officer should do if contraband is found.
As a rule, all of your client’s expectations of your security officers should be spelt out clearly and concisely in the post orders allowing no room for unnecessary discretion.
Remember these tips to keep your orders in order |
Take Ownership | Security team has led, but make sure all stakeholders are included in drafting
KISS | Keep it brief and to the point, no need to explain the policy just the actions required
Review & Update Periodically | At least twice a year and after any security incident
Document | Communicate changes made and record them effectively in the same document
Train & Test | Train new employees thoroughly and regularly test knowledge comprehension
The first item I believe you should include in your security post orders is information from your early chats with your new customer. You must highlight the objectives that your client hopes to attain by employing you to provide security services.
Include Your Customer’s Goals in Your Security Guard Post Orders
In many circumstances, your customer’s objectives aren’t something you can easily obtain from them. They’ll almost always have to be something you elicit from them through a barrage of questions. One of your customers, for example, maybe graded on patient satisfaction surveys if she is the head of security at a hospital. As a result, your customer will be extremely focused on customer satisfaction. As the hired security provider, you must consider what you can do to support her in maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction.
Perhaps, rather than advising people where to go, your cops are required to offer an escort to that spot. Alternatively, your officers might give the visitor a map with the best route to that area highlighted. Again, whatever your customer’s objectives are, you must make an effort, to incorporate them into the post orders.
Constructing Your Post Orders
The security post orders can be broken into several sections, each of which would be inserted into a plastic document sleeve. The first page always deals with emergency procedures, followed by a table of contents, a site introduction that explained why we were there, and a facility map. After that, the post orders got into procedural documents and all of the associated forms.
The actual job begins after you’ve set up that nicely constructed and well-thought-out set of post orders. So, why are we saying this? That’s because your training, updates, and measurement against post orders are only as good as your training, updates, and measurement against security post orders.
Training On Your Post Orders
Every officer who works at one of your client’s sites must be well-versed in your post orders so that they can accomplish all of the objectives that you specify. After all, what good are your post orders if they tell your officers to hand out maps to hospital visitors and emphasise the best route if they haven’t been schooled on where everything is in the hospital?
As part of the training, make sure that your field supervisors or site supervisors have a thorough understanding of the security post orders. It’s also a good idea to document and keep track of your training.
Updating Your Post Orders
The most difficult aspect of post orders is keeping them up to date as needed. Your post orders must be a live document that evolves as the site’s needs change. If the site’s procedures need to change, make sure your security post orders are updated and amended as soon as feasible. It will make your job a lot easier if your security guard management software has a post-order option like OfficerRepors.com’s.
Last but not least, make sure you can track how successful your officers are following those post orders and report back to your customer on their successes. If your cops are passing out maps, make sure they’re recording it on their Daily Activity Reports (DAR) or a “maps handed out report” you can share with your client. Again, if you’re utilising security guard management software like OfficerReports.com, which allows you to customise your Daily Activity Reports, this should be a simple process.
Are You Testing on Your Post Orders?
Development of your security post orders is just the first step in ensuring high-quality security guard service. But having great post orders means nothing if your officers don’t know and understand them. To get your officers that understanding, a proper site orientation given by a capable supervisor is essential. Additionally, continuous, and ongoing testing of your officers’ understanding of your post orders should become a part of your standard procedures.
How Often Do You Update Your Post Orders?
Because security post orders are so vital, they should be treated as a living document that is updated regularly and accessible to all of your security officers. You should examine and update your post orders at least once a year as a rule. If you aren’t updating your post orders regularly, it’s most likely because reviewing, updating, and disseminating any changes is a time-consuming operation. For our Security Guard Reporting Software, we designed a Post Order functionality that allows our customers to upload any modifications to their post orders to OfficerReports.com and send them to their officers instantly.
So, are post orders essential to your success or just extra paperwork? If you combine them with regular testing and timely upgrades, they are unquestionably crucial to your success.
Do you put your officers to the test on their security post orders frequently? Are the post orders on all of your sites up to date?
Summing-up
At Shergroup we believe training and comprehension of post orders by security personnel are just as vital as formulating clear and relevant security post orders. All our security guards are well-versed in both the material and the procedures. We have introductory training time and then there is an ongoing periodic refresher training for functional security. From basic procedural knowledge to emergency event responsibilities all are a part of security guard’s training at Shergroup. Before deployment, all our guards sign and acknowledge that they have been instructed on and given the facility’s security post orders.
Instruct us if you want professional security guards for maintaining the security of your business, property, assets, and people. Trust us with your security and relax while we keep you protected. Contact our security team today and discuss your requirements.
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