Professionalising Security

Introduction

Dedicated, motivated and professional security staff employed in your organisation are an essential component of your protective security regime to mitigate against the insider and external people threat.

Security officers can help to create a positive security culture and help to embed behaviour change. They will often be the first point of contact that staff and visitors have when entering your premises and the way they behave and carry out their duties will set an example of how your organisation prioritises security.

Security staff who undertake patrols, guard entrance points, and those that carry out security screening are an effective measure in disrupting hostile reconnaissance. Hostiles will be looking for weaknesses and vulnerabilities in security that they can exploit. But motivated, attentive and observant security staff in these roles can form a highly-effective deterrent presence and final line of defence where other interventions (e.g. electronic security access) have failed.

CPNI has a range of guidance to help your organisation maximise the potential of your dedicated security officers, as well as the videos below. Please contact your CPNI adviser if you would like a copy of the CCTV e-learning package.

Control Rooms

Traditional approaches for improving CCTV control rooms have typically sought to satisfy technical requirements.  The ‘human factor’, or the operator team, is often neglected but is equally as important in achieving the aims of the CCTV function. 

The HF approach looks at creating a CCTV control room that is designed to support the activities of the control room staff in a particular environmental context and thereby ensure an effective CCTV function.

The potential benefits of the HF assessment include:

• Identifying areas for control room improvement  
• Getting the best operator job performance
• Optimising the potential detection of incidents/crimes

With the above in place, there may be financial benefits in the longer term

It is essential to consider the human element within security operations, and how your security personnel will work considering the limits of human performance. By fully appreciating this, mitigating actions can be taken to improve performance.

Motivation within the Security Industry

The Motivation Within the Security Industry guidance was developed for security managers and supervisors in order to provide practical guidance on workforce motivation in order to improve security effectiveness and efficiency within the United Kingdom’s Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) assets. 

A highly motivated workforce can have a beneficial impact on performance, attitudes and behaviours, and support your business efficiency and effectiveness.

This Motivation Within the Security Industry: Questionnaire can be used in conjuction with the above guidance.

Please note that the tool itself is no longer available, but if you have any questions please email [email protected].

Security videos