Octavian Security – a division of the multi-service Octavian Group – has a leadership team mix of women and men, with Managing Director Reshma Sheikh, pictured, and Commercial Director Amanda Butler leading the board. Women also form a large part of the Nottingham-based firm’s workforce. Butler insists that this, along with the ethnically diverse profile of staff, gives the company a dynamism that sets it apart from its competitors.
“Somebody recently told Reshma, our MD, that ‘security isn’t an industry for women with nice nails’”, says Butler.
“We found the comment amusing, but we could just as easily have been insulted! The inference was that security is an industry only for those who are willing to get their hands dirty – that it is a tough, dangerous and primarily masculine job. We reject the idea that having nice, manicured nails and the vital work of protecting businesses and livelihoods has to be mutually exclusive. Why can’t a woman with manicured nails run or work for a security business? The idea that they can’t is outdated in 2021.
“Our USP is that we are female-led, and not only female but from a minority ethnic background.
“Our management team is a fabulous blend of male and female and we believe that our contrasting life experiences give us the best mix to challenge what is perceived as ‘normal’ in the industry. It has allowed us to create a company with high levels of staff retention compared to the industry standard, and has also enabled us to bring creative, solution-based ideas to the table which complement our clients’ objectives.”
Feedback from Octavian’s clients shows that there are several distinct advantages to the company’s approach. “It can be argued, rightly or wrongly, that attention to detail is very much a female characteristic”, says Butler.
“By paying very careful attention to detail at every level, we are able to deliver bespoke services for every client, every time.”
Disparaged by some, ‘emotional intelligence’ perhaps isn’t the first concept many would associate with the security industry, but Butler says it should be taken more seriously.
“Emotional intelligence is not just a meaningless buzz word,” she says.
“In terms of key decision making it is increasingly being seen as more influential than IQ. Self-awareness, how you regulate your personal behaviour, your ability to interact with others and how you empathise are all key parts of any client relationship, in any industry. However, in security, possessing emotional intelligence seems to ‘buck the trend.’ It sets Octavian apart as a company, and it explains why our clients stick with us. We’ve built a reputation for taking the time to understand our clients on an individual level, and we deliver what we say we’re going to deliver, simple as that. It all stems from the emotional intelligence of our leadership team.”
“Because we place such a great emphasis on equality and diversity – in terms of ethnic background as well as gender – we are able to help our clients achieve their own diversity spend targets,” says Butler.
“In fact, taking into account the relationship building that goes hand in hand with this, it goes above and beyond targets. We help our clients to change their entire culture.”
Butler says the diversity of the workforce plays a large part in its rounded approach to security solutions. She says: “We are proud to have female officers as part of our front line team.
“I was recently surprised when a potential client said how hard it was to recruit female officers. This is not the case with Octavian, and the culture of diversity we have fostered comes right from the top.
“Reshma and I often have different ideas to our male colleagues. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that women are often at the forefront of innovation and creativity, both in business and in other walks of life. We are capable of developing novel strategies to challenge the status quo, and this is another key characteristic that makes Octavian Security unique in our industry.”
Communication
“Women are often regarded as great communicators, which brings us back to emotional intelligence and empathy”, says Butler. “If you put empathy and intuition together this will inevitably have a positive impact on your workforce. We are great listeners, and we can communicate effectively with staff at all levels of our business, no matter their background or what their concerns might be.”
Whether the perception is accurate or not is open to question, but it is undeniable that women executives are often viewed as more trustworthy than their male counterparts. With businesses and livelihoods at stake, trust is especially important in the security industry. Butler says: “We are definitely not here to say that male executives are not to be trusted! Men occupy vital roles on Octavian’s board and we employ lots of men across the company. Yet we have developed a reputation for trustworthiness which may well have a lot to do with the composition of our Board. To entrust the protection of your property to an outsider is a big thing. Clients know they can trust Octavian to deliver.”
Culture
“None of our clients are viewed as ‘just another contract’”, says Octavian’s Managing Director Reshma Sheikh.
“We care more than most in the industry. We care about everything we do at every level. Each client is granted Director access and involvement and each is valued for their specific contract. Although it is often said that business isn’t personal, to us, each and every client, each and every contract, is just that. Personal. We believe this approach has been a vital part of our success. Our clients know we really care about them.”
Butler says: “We seek to be different in how we work with our clients and achieve their aims. Every client is different so why should we try to fit contracts into pre-designed boxes that don’t provide the right solutions for each client? The fact that we do things differently is one of the primary factors in our success. So to those out there who think that nice nails and security don’t go hand in hand, we say, ‘no – we can have expensive manicures and revolutionise the security industry at the same time!’”
Octavian Group has offices in Nottingham, the USA and UAE.
