Investment in graduates can benefit everyone: you business, your employees, your clients, writes Chris Lawrence, Principal Security Consultant, TPS.
In 2009 the Security and Explosion Effects Team within TPS championed the case for graduate trainees and developed a Graduate Training Programme (GTP) for its post-graduate new starters. With no obvious career progression or development path for people considering a career in security consultancy, the objective was to develop our people and their skills in a structured and professional manner, tailored to the security arena.
This development also aimed to give them a more rounded appreciation of the wider security industry outside of their chosen disciplines and enable them to have greater understanding of security methodology when working on multi-disciplinary projects, or to add value to their own individual efforts. Cynics saw this as a form of cheap labour for us on resource-hungry tasks. But in the absence of formal security management training path, the tools and techniques they learned over the course of the training programme has given them a firm foothold in our eclectic industry.
The first four candidates who successfully completed the programme have now moved on and up; for example Doug Cochrane is now working towards becoming one of our Subject Matter Experts on hostile vehicle mitigation measures, and Simone Volpe runs our business development offering in Italy. The 2012 GTP candidates comprise a risk manager and three civil engineers. Cristina Heselden, pictured, joined TPS in August 2011 as a graduate security adviser in the risk management team. Cristina’s first degree was in architecture, but then chose to follow Environmental Hazards and Disaster Management, graduating from Kingston University in 2011.
Terri Turner, Dan Pullen and Will Wholey have joined the explosion effects team from the University of Sheffield. Terri and Dan graduated with civil engineering degrees while Will arrived with an MSc in structural engineering, after obtaining a MEng from Oxford in civil and mechanical engineering.
The training has been structured in a way that complements their own individual discipline’s continuous professional development requirements. Over a 12 month period, they complete monthly training modules that take them through an individual aspect of security specialism. Covered are everything from crime risk modelling to the requirements for testing CCTV cameras. They are expected to carry out follow up research into a given topic and present short papers on their findings.
Whilst delivery is mainly class-room based, our graduates can either shadow a more senior consultant on a live project, or undertake direct delivery of some project based tasks themselves. We have also organised visits to the various trade shows such as IFSEC and CT Expo. This also formed part of their wider education and again at these events, they were required to research subjects such as innovation within the cash marking sector or developments in the ballistic protection offered by body armour. However, the most valuable experience is working outside of their disciplines and comfort zones, with or alongside our customers.
For example, Terri Turner was employed on small scale security audit work for one of the UK’s leading telecommunications providers where she had to visit a number of their sites. Part of the audit was to engage with their technical engineering staff and elicit answers regarding compliance to internal processes.
Dan Pullen on the other hand spotted a fundamental weakness in a client’s electronic security posture during an evaluation of their manned guarding services. Cristina has run her own mini-project, again with a leading telecommunications provider, and took on full responsibilities of planning and delivery of an audit. Will spent several weeks during the early summer working as part of a multi-discipline security team designing technical security for a project associated with a major sporting event in London. All of these activities were conducted in consultation with, and with the agreement of our customers who have been very supportive of our initiative.
I head the security advisory team, am lead mentor and responsible for designing and delivering the course. I’m a keen advocate of both professional and personal development, having been a mature student at the University of Portsmouth, and gone through many corporate security training and development programmes in my career in the security industry. I believe personal and professional development is key to being a successful individual. No-one is in the position of knowing it all; especially in an industry as diverse as ours, and I am very fortunate and privileged to be in a position where I can help those who are starting out on their career paths within the security discipline.
Clients demand
TPS Director of Security and Explosion Effects, Mark Whyte, says: ‘The security and wider resilience and disaster risk management consulting sector become is becoming ever more sophisticated. Clients are demanding excellent academic backgrounds from consultants together with very strong technical and management skills. Today’s consultants need to be capable of everything from the creation of bespoke security risk management models for financial institutions through to working in multi-disciplined project teams developing security master plans and detailed design solutions for iconic new build developments around the world. Our graduate development programme not only helps to satisfy that requirement, it also helps us to attract first class graduates from leading institutions who wish to pursue a career in security. We believe this approach to graduate training and investment in the future will, and already is, benefiting our business, our employees and our clients.”
Feedback
“As a recent graduate of the TPS GTP I am now able to reflect on the entirety of the programme and how it influenced my role here at TPS. Being a participant in the GTP was a great way of starting my career at this organisation. We reviewed the basic concepts of security and risk but were also educated on the management of the Security and Explosive Effects team, as well as how TPS and Carillion operate as a whole. Therefore, the GTP provided holistic training on all aspects of the business and this understanding gave context to my role within TPS.”
Cristina
“As part of the Security and Explosive Effects team at TPS my academic background in civil and structural engineering provided me with the basic level of understanding in which to undertake my work. I soon found working in a multidisciplinary office that there were things I just didn’t have the experience in to undertake confidently; this is where the TPS graduate training programme provided me with the knowledge to work effectively with the other disciplines in the group. In the last 6 months the programme has provided me with knowledge of business continuity, covering IMS, contracts, budgets and finance. The programme has also allowed me to work more effectively with other departments within the group, providing me with a broad overview of the security sector. As a whole I think the programme has been very beneficial and I feel that I am in a stronger position than before to progress my professional development.”
Dan
About the author:
Chris Lawrence has 35 years’ experience in the industry. He is a Fellow of the Security Institute and a Chartered Security Professional. Visit www.tpsconsult.co.uk.
