The need to feel appreciated is a fundamental human desire. As adults, we thrive on the positive feedback that we receive from our environment. Being valued and appreciated reinforces a person’s positive sense of self-worth. This is especially true for your security officers. In many instances, in the security guard industry, front-line security officers can be the most undervalued members of an organization. So showing them appreciation makes them feel seen and connected to the larger organization. As such, their satisfaction and productivity rises and they are more motivated to maintain or improve their work. That is one of the reasons that you have to focus more of your time and attention on your good officers than your bad officers.
Let me ask you a very serious question about your security officers…
I know that you know how to deal with your bad officers, but how are you taking care of your good officers?
Security company owners talk to me all the time about all of the horrible things that their worst employees do. In fact, it’s probably the thing that keeps them up most nights. Bad officers will lose your contracts. But on the flip side, I can probably count on two hands the number of times I’ve heard someone brag about their officers.
As a security company owner or administrator, I know that you have horror stories about the things that you’ve gone through because of the ill-advised actions of some of your officers. But when you really think about it, those bad seeds only represent a small percentage of your security force. In fact, I’d hazard a guess and say that you’ve got as many or more REALLY good officers as you do bad officers. So the question is…
How do you reward your REALLY good security officers?
The first and most important way that companies should be showing appreciation to their good officers is by paying them well. Unfortunately, many companies are not providing high enough bids to properly compensate their officers (OfficerBilling.com can help with that, but hat’s a subject will cover in a different blog). With that being that case, besides pay what else can you do?
I took the liberty of doing a little research for you. I’ve read a couple of studies and in many cases what employees wanted most, after better compensation, was to be valued and recognized. With that in mind, I’d like to ask, how are you recognizing your best employees? I’ve heard company owners say hundreds of times, “my company is nothing without my officers”. If you find yourself saying the same thing, take a minute to sit back and really think about whether you’re just talking the talk or walking the walk?
I don’t think it really takes much to show appreciation to your officers. If you want an example of what that can look like, I’d point you to Weiser Security. If you have a moment, check out their company page on LinkedIn. They’re giving out certificates of recognition, anniversary pins, birthday cookies and more. They are a good example.
If you really want to show your officer some appreciation, how about nominating your security officers for an award. Every year ASIS sponsors the Ralph Day Security Heroism Award. The Award is awarded to a front-line security officer who has performed in a gallant or heroic manner in the course of his or her duties. It’s free to nominate your officer and would be a great way to say thanks to an officer.
A security leader cannot be successful if they don’t have the support of their team. One of the easiest ways to show support is to make sure that your officers know how much you appreciate them. If you think that you are doing a great job of recognizing your security officers, we’d love to hear about it so leave a comment below.
By Courtney Sparkman
OfficerReports.com is a software company that provides security guard companies with an easy way to monitor their officers, better manage their operations, and win new business. Take a tour of our software to see how we combine Electronic Reporting, Real-Time GPS based Tour Tracking, and GPS based Clock In and Out into one easy-to-use platform.
