We looked at the issue of age versus experience in our August 2001 print edition.
In our July 2001 print edition we reported Sony Music Entertainment Services Manager Phyllis Morgan’s comment at IFSEC 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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SARAH MARTIN: 1999-2000 won the award for Investigator of the Year for Great Britain, through the Association of British Investigators. 1999-2000 became Chairman of the Southern Branch of the Association of British Investigators. 2000-2001 was voted onto the ABI Governing Council as Chairman of Education & Training.
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Sarah Martin loves the private investigation industry. She has never come across sexism or ageism, ‘which is amazing, considering it is such a male-oriented industry’. She is a member of the Association of British Investigators, that has only a handful of females. ‘If you do the job and you are professional, you are respected. It doesn’t matter if you are black or white, female, young and old, it is the results that count. And you don’t need to come from a military background to do the job. Some police officers have said it isn’t easy to go from a large institution and suddenly work on your own, without any back up, in a civil arena rather than where they come from, which is all criminal law.’ For the difference between the police and private investigation she gives the example of a surveillance job – a police operation would have numbers, whereas the private investigator’s surveillance is often solitary, ‘and you use your creativity and your guile, and you get things from people by not being intimidating, not being threatening, and by being humble, and realise you have the same rights as any other citizen – especially if you have witnesses who are hostile and you need a statement for a court case.’ Sarah’s view is that if the private investigator has to knock on a door, it helps once inside to comment (say) on the ornaments; it relaxes people. Take a surveillance operation – two men in a car might arouse suspicion, but not a woman putting on lipstick or reading a map upside down (Sarah’s tongue in cheek choice of examples). ‘The same in a school; it’s acceptable for a woman to go to a school, to speak to a principal, whatever. But a guy filming a school – it doesn’t look too good.’ Also if a private investigator’s client is a woman, she may find it easier to divulge domestic matters to another woman.
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As for age: young or old, Sarah reckons an investigator has to be something of a chameleon, the type of person who you want to tell everything to. That calls for communication and people skills. So does that mean you need to be of a certain age and experience, so that you know the score’ Well, Sarah feels the future is open to young, ambitious people entering the industry, who know the dos and don’ts, and know that investigations are not glamourous. Sarah says she is inundated with letters from careers libraries and young people interested in a career in investigations. She speaks highly of her female teenage trainee who is taking an NVQ in investigation, offered by City and Guilds and SITO. Sarah points out that the ABI has introduced a new category – trainee membership – so that these NVQ trainees can attend branch meetings and seminars, stay updated on the law, build networks; in a word, gain that all-important experience.
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She argues it is better if you have trained in private investigation rather than in the police. A unthreatening demeanour (whatever your age) can give the investigator the advantage. She recalls how she started in debt collection: ‘You know what they used to make me do’ Door knocks on council estates. I used to say, ‘Hi, I know you owe money; you know you owe money. You don’t want to go to court, can we come to an amicable arrangement” Nine times out of ten they used to pay.’ The non-threatening approach pays, Sarah feels, because the heavy-handed alternative was to go back to court – and spend more of the client’s money.
