Ageism and the security industry was featured in our July and August 2001 issues.
In our July print edition we reported Sony Music Entertainment Services Manager Phyllis Morgan’s comment at IFSEC 2001 that she tells her contract guarding company, Initial, to provide officers aged under 25, because the music business is so youth-dominated. Ray Redmore, Managing Director of Security 2000, the manned guarding firm based in Avonmouth, Bristol, that specialises in guarding industrial estates, comments: ‘My experience of employing people under 25 is poor. In almost every case they have proved to be unreliable, irresponsible and totally undisciplined. We therefore do not employ them any more. Most managers I speak to are of the same opinion – which is very, very sad.’
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Brian Ward, divisional director of security for Tussauds Group, the man in charge of security at Alton Towers, says there is a lot to be said for a combination of old and young; his security team’s age range is 21 to 60. We reported in May how the Staffordshire visitor attraction only recruits security staff with a police, fire, military or similar background. Young and old can learn from each other, he says: ‘We do go, if we can, for the mature person, because experience as well as training comes into play.’
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A vetting requirment is that a job candidate has a ten-year checkable work history, or a history as far back as school if the candidate has less than a ten-year post-school career. Victoria Collins of ESP Vetting Consultancy in south London points out that the older person being vetted can throw up difficulties, even if the job-seeker is above board; it can be tricky to get references from a company that has ceased trading: ‘It is a case of finding someone who worked at that company, who knew them individually and they can verify their details.’ On the other hand, an older worker may have worked at only one firm for many years, which makes vetting simple.
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Roger Mayne, security adviser for Cornwall County Council, is working with Cornish schools and the Department for Education on security of staff and premises. He agrees that the security industry is a natural field for former police officers like himself (ex-Thames Valley) to go into, ‘because they feel comfortable with it and it isn’t an alien culture. What I do find is that a lot of people like the credibility that the police have.’ A police background does give you ‘street-cred’ in the world of security; as Roger puts it: ‘You can be a security manager at 21, if you want, but what’s the pedigree” Yet he is by no means a believer that a 30-year police career should be a conveyor belt to security management; instead, he takes a ‘horses for courses’ view. Someone with ten years’ police service can have a great deal of street-experience to take into private security; someone who served largely in traffic cannot be expected to know how to tackle fraud in a commercial organisation.
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Security management can call for specialising as much as police work. The security team on a university campus, for example, may well have to go about ‘customer care’ in a quite different way to, say, a more traditional office. The largely young clientele at a university may well react differently to security staff than a shirt and tie bank. Trevor Jones, the security manager at the University of Loughborough, sees something in the theory that young people defer to the maturer-looking security personnel. Aged 59, he is a former career police officer who is retiring after nine and a half years at the Leicestershire university. He has a security team of 26, whose age ranges go from 25 to 62; most are in their 40s and 50s. Their background is a mix too: one or two former police officers, ex-military, security officers from other places, such as nearby East Midlands Airport. He says: ‘I think age is an advantage in a lot of respects. I have never felt my age is a problem.’
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Rod Repton says: ‘It would be very easy to sit back and play golf all the time, but I have never worked so hard. It isn’t a job that I have taken up as a hobby, it’s a real job. I have got my police pension already, but I give it 110 per cent.’ Rod, 52, was 32 years in the police and retired in August 1998. He set up on his own, as Derby-based Repton Training and Security, offering training and investigations. He is a member of EPIC (Ex-Police in Industry and Commerce) and he is a member of the security committee of the BVRLA (British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association). On that committee, the likes of Avis and Hertz meet HM Customs and Excise and police bodies such as the National Criminal Intelligence Service. That group hears the latest on vehicle theft and deception trends. Rod makes a point of keeping himself and other staff clued up: from periodicals, the internet, Kluwer’s handbook, seminars such as Safer Doors on door staff, in Bridlington on June 28; mail from security companies; besides police and military contacts. As he puts it: ‘We want to keep up to date because we don’t sell a product except ourselves.’
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Abreast of the law
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On the training side, staying abreast of the law is vital, and not just directly relating to security, but health and safety and more; the firm trains licencees, for example, which means knowing licencing law. What of Rod’s actual age’ ‘I like to think I am an administrator more and more; as the business develops I will just be the head, directing people.’ The men and women on his door supervisors and executive protection courses, for example, are aged 20 to 40 – ‘sometimes it doesn’t pay to have a police background, because you have set ideas’. As for executive protection, he feels: ‘There’s a lot of people saying they are ex-Army, ex-SAS – they could have been a cook. There’s a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon.’ When it comes to going into the field, whether carrying out surveillance or personal protection, age does matter, he admits: ‘I wouldn’t dream of doing duties as a bodyguard. As a general rule, over 40, say 45, you would have to keep yourself extremely fit and alert, and look the part, because part of it is to deter – well, the majority.’
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Nigel Spencer-Knott, a London pre-employment screening expert, e-mailed Professional Security: ‘Advantage is taken of experienced former police officers on the understanding that employers can avoid paying top money as the ex-officer has a pension cushion – thus many fail to sell themsleves properly in the market – this attitude is changing as employees become aware of their value. On the other hand some former colleagues do not wish to put in a full week’s work and so are less employable. Re the CCTV and technological side, I have no real knowledge of an ageism angle. Whether any person can keep pace depends on the individual and there are many old workers who are chronologically young."
