Security is an important concern for businesses of all sizes, whether its main focus is protecting personnel, company sites, or proprietary business information. Many companies have traditionally hired and trained their own security, although, in recent years, some have chosen to partner with a professional security services company.
Let’s take a look at how your company can benefit from security; then we’ll focus on a few of the ways that partnering with a professional security company can maximize your company’s return on investment (ROI).
Does My Company Need Security?
Many executives may believe that their company needs little in the way of security. Maybe they think the odds are low of any incident taking place, maybe they trust all of their employees both implicitly and explicitly, or perhaps they believe that the costs aren’t worth it.
However, paying for a year of security services can be significantly less expensive than the costs incurred from a single incident. Many companies have ended up filing for bankruptcy or gone out of business because of incidents or failures that could have easily been prevented by increased security.
“Security” in this context means more than just hiring a few security guards, although that is also an important element. It includes cameras, secure transportation, executive protection like bodyguard services, parking or entrance validation, and much more. The exact amount of protection a business requires will depend greatly on the business itself, but it is never “zero”.
Reduced Long-Term Costs
Although it may seem like handling security in-house would be the cheaper option (and, in the short term, it could be), it will be significantly more expensive as time goes on. Most professional security firms will require only a flat rate per year, plus any potential contingency or other fees negotiated ahead of time.
Conversely, the in-house option will require, at the very least, background checks, training, equipment, salary plus benefits, oversight, and insurance. Additionally, in 2020, voluntary employee turnover rates, which refers to employees choosing to quit their jobs, were 9% higher in the security industry (34%) than the national average across all occupations. This results in higher costs, as all hiring and training spending must be repeated for each new employee.
Reduced Liability
With in-house security, the company is legally and financially liable for any mistakes, errors in judgment, or any other negative outcome caused directly or indirectly by its employees. The cost of these lawsuits can be staggering and potentially put the company’s future in jeopardy. In contrast, partnering with a security firm greatly reduces these liabilities. More importantly, errors are significantly less likely to happen because their employees will generally have more experience and will have undergone specialized training that the average company’s internal security would not have taken.
Greater Flexibility
On a related note to the previous points, a company’s internal security guards are inherently limited in the scope of what they can do by the training they’ve been given. For example, an unarmed employee whose training is focused on guarding a warehouse at night would generally not be able to provide bodyguard services to the company’s executives because they haven’t been trained to do so, and the two are different skill sets. Asking them to do so opens up the company to undue liability, so they would be restricted to guarding warehouses. A professional security services firm will either have employees who have been trained and are experienced in multiple areas or can provide separate employees for different services. Your company only needs to pay the negotiated fee written into the contract instead of hiring multiple security guards who specialize in different fields or training all employees to do different jobs and hoping their turnover rate is low.
Enhanced Monitoring
As the amount of square footage that a company’s holdings occupy increases, so does the number of security cameras that are required for monitoring purposes. Even a single small warehouse will require at least a dozen cameras to monitor vendors, employees, products, and everyone/everything else that passes through its doors.
If an incident does take place, a company that handles security internally has to pay in both time and money to review that footage, either by paying an hourly employee or taking a salaried employee away from their usual work to potentially review hours of footage from multiple camera angles. A security services firm will handle all of the work themselves at no additional cost.
The Deterrent Factor
Another important element to consider is that merely the presence of security guards or equipment has been proven to be a deterrent to potential criminals. Retail stores with security guards posted by the exits have lower rates of shoplifting because criminals know it’s not worth the risk. They prefer easy targets with a high chance of success, and the presence of guards will often make them think twice.
This can also deter employees who might be tempted to take off with money or material goods. If the security guard is a fellow employee, that guard could tend to be less suspicious of their coworkers, whereas a trained security worker employed by an outside company will be able to assess a given situation more correctly. That’s not to say an internally employed security guard can never be trusted, of course, but it’s human nature to be more trusting or at least less suspicious of those we consider peers.
Training
In addition to the excellent professional security these organizations provide, they often also offer various training programs for employees and management for things like first aid/CPR, home safety, and workplace violence. This allows companies to leverage the great security knowledge and experience these companies have to gain important skills that their employees can use in and out of work.
Not only will this protect the company in a variety of situations, but it will also teach employees important skills that can help improve morale and job satisfaction. Instead of feeling like security is watching their every move and is “out to get them,” they’ll have a fuller understanding of the importance of security in their daily lives. Knowing CPR and other basic medical skills can also help save lives.
These are just a few of the many reasons security is critical for businesses of all sizes around the country and how partnering with a professional security firm can maximize ROI. Companies can receive a higher level of security for less money while protecting themselves from potential legal action.
Even if you feel like your company isn’t at risk from any sort of incident and you don’t need personal protection, bodyguard services, secure transportation, or anything else, it’s always a good idea to invest in even a basic level of security. Even if no one is physically in danger, the loss of money, goods, or trade secrets can make or break a company. As Ben Franklin once said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.