An opportunity not to be missed

The Working Time Directive offers the UK security industry an opportunity that should be seized with both hands. Instead of being criticised for demanding long hours from our officers in return for low pay, we'll be forced to improve their working conditions and transform this industry of ours into one that's just a little more professional in the way it goes about its business.

By reducing the hours we require them to work, we'll be able to improve our officers' work-life balance and reduce the risk of accidents and dangers to health which are inherent in working long shifts.

Our officers will be fresher and more alert, we'll benefit from lower staff churn and ultimately begin to attract larger numbers of better quality security operatives.

By reducing officers' weekly hours and employing more staff to cover given assignments, security companies will also begin to take on a more robust structure, and enjoy the benefit of having a pool of properly trained staff to cater for absentees.

In turn, the private sector's more settled and better motivated officers can then start to take on extra responsibilities and, in so doing, add value to the client's business. That can only help us in improving the perception of the security industry among clients and sector commentators alike.

Practicality and cost-effectiveness
All that said, changing our long-established working practices requires careful consideration of each of the three groups who'll be directly affected by the Working Time Directive's 48-hour maximum working week.

We need to consider the lot of the individual officer and his or her needs as part of a system that's practical and cost-effective for security companies, and which meets the needs of end users for a reasonable price. After all, if manned security services were to become too expensive we'd all be in trouble.

At Securiplan, we recognise that our business depends on the success of this three-way partnership, and thus we need to find pragmatic solutions which will satisfy everyone. Although shift workers are permitted to work up to 13-hour day shifts under the Working Time Directive, 12-hour shifts are sometimes criticised as the root cause of officers becoming over-tired and lacking in motivation. The Directive actually specifies a maximum of eight-hour shifts at night, so moving to a roster of eight-hour shifts might seem to be a sensible way of implementing the 48-hour week.

We must take into account the implications of the 48-hour week for those sites which we guard for 108 hours, covering week nights and weekends, which will require two full-time officers and a part-timer to take on the outstanding 12 hours each week. Posit

In order for an officer to work 48 hours per week in shifts of eight hours, they'd be required to work (on average) six days out of every seven. Clearly, this is an unreasonable expectation. Instead, each officer could work two early shifts (say, from 6.00 am through to 2.00 pm), two late shifts (2.00 pm to 10.00 pm) and two night shifts (10.00 pm until 6.00 am the next morning) in an eight-day cycle, clocking up just 42 hours per week and working six days out of every eight in the process. That arrangement is not likely to prove very popular, though.

Furthermore, once you allow for them sleeping off the last night shift on their first full day off, they'll be left with just one recreational day in every eight-day cycle.

At the same time, officers would find their pay packet to be significantly smaller than it was pre-Working Time Directive. If they'd previously worked a 56-hour week, their salary would drop by something like 33% – compelling private sector security companies to compensate for this with a corresponding increase in their hourly rate of pay.

I can confidently predict that this system of eight-hour shifts would result in security officers leaving the industry in droves. At the same time, security companies will be trying to employ (ie recruit and train) four officers to cover each position instead of three. Recruitment will become even more difficult than at present, and with the best will in the world I cannot see a 33% increase in costs being passed on to the industry's clients. The eight-hour shifts model is unworkable, then, and would be unacceptable to all parties.

A professional security service
Looking again at 12-hour shifts, it should be possible to mitigate their length by giving our officers frequent breaks (something which we already do at Securiplan). An officer's 48-hour week would then involve four 12-hour shifts every week. A 168 roster would be shared between 'three-and-a-half' officers, working four-day shifts or night shifts, or indeed a combination of both. There'd be four clear days off in an eight-day cycle, with one extra shift every two weeks to increase the average to 48 hours spread over seven days.

We know that such a working pattern would be popular with the officers. However, there's a serious risk here that we might well encourage 'moonlighting' (a practise endemic among the fire-fighting fraternity, as highlighted during the course of recent industrial action). This is not something I believe to be compatible with a professional security service. If the 48-hour rule allows for officers working 12-hour shifts for us on four days out of every seven, and then working in some other sector for the rest of the week, the limitations of the Working Time Directive would be made a mockery.

We must also take into account the implications of the 48-hour week for those sites which we guard for 108 hours, covering week nights and weekends, which will require two full-time officers and a part-timer to take on the outstanding 12 hours each week. Positions on sites which must be manned for 60 hours every week will also need a second officer to make up those extra 12 hours (unless, of course, the client is prepared to reduce the requirement to 48 hours per week).

The Working Time Directive will force the increase in pay rates that our officers deserve, in order to keep their income constant at current levels while their hours are reduced. This will result in an increase in charges of around 16.7%, which the client

We're keen to minimise the number of part-time officers that we would need to employ in order to fill those gaps in coverage. Not only are they expensive to train and equip – relative to the number of hours they work – but they're also notoriously unreliable.

Clients will be forced to pay
As officers' hours are reduced and we begin to need more of them, security companies can expect to face an increase in the cost of recruitment, training, uniforms and administration. Naturally, if we expect to retain our current crop of officers when their hours are cut, we'll have to maintain their salaries at existing levels by increasing their hourly pay.

Therefore, an officer who's currently working 56 hours per week and has his hours reduced to 48 will require an increase of 16.67% in his or her hourly pay rate, while those currently working 60-hour weeks will want to receive a compensatory 25% increase. These are costs that must be borne by the client, and for which they'll want to see a corresponding improvement in the level of service delivery.

While the 48-hour working week is an ideal to which we should all aspire, its rigidity will raise costs in our industry and produce impractical rostering patterns (while generating questionable benefits for the officers themselves). If we roster their hours in eight-hour shifts they will have too few days off, whereas if we stick to 12-hour shifts they'll have too much spare time on their hands and will thus be tempted to consider a second job.

We really need a more flexible solution to working hours than that offered by the Working Time Directive in its present form. We need to be able to offer our officers optional overtime such that we might counteract any desire to 'moonlight', and make up the hours on our rosters. We'd need to limit officers' overtime to a maximum of one shift per week and control this very strictly indeed (so as not to recreate the long hours culture). I believe it's better to allow controlled overtime than to run the risk of officers working for two employers.

No crisis in recruitment
By implementing the 48-hour week with an optional 12-hour shift, available during their days off, we will automatically offset the need for part-time officers to plug those gaps – and thereby prevent a crisis in recruitment. Those who don't wish to work any overtime hours will naturally not be expected to do so.

The Working Time Directive will force the increase in pay rates that our officers deserve, in order to keep their income constant at current levels while their hours are reduced. This will result in an increase in charges across the industry of around 16.7%, which the client base has no option but to accept – in much the same way that security companies have had to accommodate the Minimum Wage since it came into force.

Once we can offer a decent income to officers working a 48-hour week, we'll find ourselves able to recruit good workers from other industries and then truly raise the standards of private sector professionalism in such a way that we can meet the challenges and opportunities laid down by the Private Security Industry Act 2001 and the Police Reform Act.