"Value not price, careers not jobs"

Security Management Totay (SMT): David… On the licensing front, the slow take-up among door supervisors has been a big concern. If that’s replicated in the guarding sector, surely we could be faced with a huge problem?

David Dickinson (DD): There are two factors to consider here. Take-up in the first instance was slow because there were some elements in both the customer and supplier factions who didn’t believe that the Security Industry Authority (SIA) was serious. The SIA proved it was deadly serious, and then the uptake began to increase enormously. I think the SIA handled the situation superbly, by being flexible to a degree but also by standing firm to a great extent.

It’s probably fair to say that the guarding industry is rather better organised in terms of the bulk of it. Around 75%-80% of people employed in the sector work for BSIA member companies. By and large they’ve committed themselves to a roll-out programme for licensing in 2005 which will help the SIA and the companies concerned. If the other 20% of companies in the industry don’t want to ‘play’, well, that’s their loss.

Frankly, I’m saddened at the short-sighted comments of some blue chip companies who are apparently telling their security suppliers they will not pay for regulation and licensing until the very last minute because they don’t see why they should. That’s their commercial decision, but we need to go back to what SIA chief executive John Saunders has said on more than one occasion... “There will be a finite supply of good quality, trained and licensed security officers and an infinite amount of work.”

The laws of the market can apply to both sides of the equation. Those same laws have driven prices down now for 12 consecutive years. This has to change. That’s not us or indeed the industry looking to profiteer, but merely seeking to be profitable to an extent whereby we can reinvest in people to enable the SIA to do its statutory job.

SMT: Who’s more culpable for the current state of affairs, David? Contractors or customers?

DD: I pondered for a long time why it was that if you’re managing a scarce resource that’s in demand prices reduce, because the laws of economics tell you that shouldn’t be the case.

A well-trained, vetted and committed security officer is a scarce resource.

The only conclusion I can come to is that even the biggest contractors are relatively smaller than the purchasing power of their customers.

On the face of it, the customer has several hundred suppliers to choose from. In essence, they’d probably restrict themselves to choosing one from half a dozen or so bidding companies.

The expectation caused by the cowboy fringe is ever present. Until that fringe disappears and there’s a clear differentiation between the people who do what they say they’ll do and by a certain specified timeline and those that merely promise to deliver and fail, then we’ll never progress.

I’ve lost count of the number of clients who’ve said to me: “What we’re looking for is a really professional service” and then price dominates the whole issue. It can’t. We must talk value instead of price. Careers not jobs. A profession not an industry. This is the way forward.

SMT: Many end users we’ve spoken to at SMT have told us that it isn’t the officers that are the problem, but rather a lack of on-site management and supervision of those officers by the contracted security company. What’s your take on this, David?

DD: Fifteen years ago, the gross margin on most guarding contracts was 28%. The profit was maybe around 4%, and the rest was invested in the service. One of the key elements was training, another a level of local supervision that allowed the best players to offer supervisory visits as frequently as once every shift and certainly one per day.

In squeezing out the margin, what customers have managed to do is compromise on the level of supervision and opportunities to train people – either pre or post-promotion – in the art of supervision and management rather than solely security guarding.

It’s a problem that must be addressed and will be addressed as a matter of urgency because it contributes significantly to high labour turnover. If we can get much more stability into the workforce we can recoup the money from the churn that’s been cut out and begin to reinvest more. However, there needs to be a kick-start and that’s why customers have to understand that there will be an increase in costs and pricing. Not necessarily this year for licensing, but certainly in years two and three as people begin to understand the true worth of the licensed security officer.

That’s not the BSIA talking everything up on behalf of the industry. This is a true reflection of the experience of every European nation where licensing has been introduced.

The other thing those countries have experienced is an improvement in the quality and real value of the security service and, more importantly, an improvement of the esteem felt by the industry and its people. If we are going to have to recruit from a different labour market, we need to recognise that, aside from increased pay and conditions, there needs to be more job enrichment and fulfilment. We will compete and our customers will compete to enlist the best people ahead of the prison service, the police and the Armed Forces.

SMT: The security industry is becoming more and more high tech now. That being the case, shouldn’t we be looking further afield than the Armed Forces and the police for the supervisors, managers and, indeed, officers of tomorrow?

DD: It depends where the business is coming from and what the client needs and demands of its security manager. There are many jobs in the industry which are frankly routine and need to be done in a routine way. Take event security. You’ll find there that security officers are much better at some jobs than police officers because they do it as a routine in accordance with instruction and don’t employ discretional decisions which police officers are paid and trained to do. If you have to search someone every time they come through an entrance channel then you search them.

Around the country, there are lots of security jobs that are 95% routine and 5% concerned with instant decision making and reaction. Some people love that kind of work. Back in my days at Group 4, there were two PhDs who were security officers working the night shift!

What we want to do, and we’re already working on this with SITO, is to be able to start in the schools, putting up the provision of security and safety services as being a potential career of choice. Not a job because someone needs it, but a career because they want one.

I think we can do that. I think we can even go a step further and almost look, potentially at least, at a cadet force. Just like the police cadets of old, where those young people demanding a vocational approach to life could join the industry as they leave school at maybe 16 or 17 and serve the equivalent of a modern apprenticeship in security guarding and services.

That would mean a good deal of forward thinking, much courage and not a little investment, but if the industry is going to succeed and flourish at a time when people are scarce then it simply must develop its own labour supply.

In strictly business terms, no-one will want to enter the guarding market anymore. Not with a 1-2% return. People have asked why can’t the licence be for life unless it is revoked for criminality? The answer is because, over the course of time, the competencies and qualifications will need to move up a gear since circumstances will change. That’s inevitable. Just as we’ve perhaps managed to get a change in designation from guard to security officer, so we should be looking for them to become security advisors at the same time.

Many an employer would listen to a police officer who’s passing by and offering security advice. Why not their own men and women on the spot? That’s all down to training and credibility.

One of the biggest problems the industry has, and indeed contractors have, is the better they are at their job, the less they appear to be needed. You can almost hear the client now. “Why do we need six officers on site? Nothing has happened for over a year now.” Customers will cut provision down until an incident does occur, and then reinstate the numbers. How crazy is that? This is not a grudge purchase. This is part of disaster recovery planning. The bit marked ‘Prevention’.

I’d like to see us back in the situation we found ourselves in some years ago, where the guarding contract bids are evaluated on the quality of advice on security matters given in the bid rather than on the breakdown of the price.

SMT: Most commentators are in agreement that we need to move away from price-driven contract wins. However, that doesn’t square with the advent of e-tendering, which is really leading the industry back to Square One and chopping out quality from the equation altogether. What are your views on e-bidding?

DD: E-bidding started with this iniquitous business of a line-by-line splitting out of costs followed by a cherry-picking of individual bids.

All that accomplished was make people very wary about where they put their costs. My concern about e-bidding is that it’s totally impersonal. If I were a shareholder in a plc, I’m not sure how content I’d be if, come the Annual General Meeting, I asked the chairman who was responsible for company assets and people and was told that everything was arranged by e-bid.

Providing the security service ought to be a matter of the gravest concern to the Board. They must get it right because ultimately they have a Duty of Care to do so. Also, it ought to be in the public interest to ensure that the people who are in charge of that responsibility are the best available to be so. I don’t see how online Dutch auctions can attain the necessary standard of security provision following an hour’s furious bidding if the concentration is purely on the price.

How does an e-bid cope with ‘value’? It can’t. I’ve never encountered a computerised system that displays any emotion. In the end there is some emotion attached to those whom you’ll entrust to look after your people and premises.

There’ll be an argument that people-based security costs are high, and becoming higher still. One could suggest that an over-reliance on security guarding is an expensive way of providing a security service. Yes, there should be a greater use of technology and we’d encourage that, but there’s not a machine yet invented that responds to itself. In the end, when an alarm is triggered or an incident occurs, what’s then needed is highly trained and motivated people to respond, and deal with the situation properly and conclusively. I really don’t know how you convey that in an e-bid.

SMT: How is the BSIA’s agreed roll-out programme for licensing of officers going to work in practice, David?

DD: We’ve agreed the roll-out programme with our members, and we have a commitment from private sector contractors employing a grand total of 76,000 security officers. If that take-up is met smoothly throughout the year then it will absorb much of the worry.

The Approved Contractor Scheme will be the key differential between those who want to go the extra mile and those that wish to merely provide the basic service. It’s entirely right for the ‘Approved Contractor hurdle’ to be high enough that it’s taxing. There must be clear blue water between Approved Contractors and the rest.