Understanding the behaviour of others will help you develop your behaviour, to have better relationships in business, trainer James Blackhurst of Jigsaw told a recent Reliance Security seminar, at the Leicester Tigers rugby ground.
He went through DISC – four traits in people. Dominance (represented by the colour red), influence (yellow), compliance (blue) and steadiness (green). Briefly, what if a customer shows strong signs of the dominance trait; even if you provide an efficient service, that might not be what the customer likes. Stressing that no one behaviour was right or wrong, he went through the behaviours. Yellow behaviour might be shown by telesales staff; blue by auditors. A clash of behaviours might lead to conflict between members of a work team. To give a guarding application, what if a contract guard (as indeed the one on duty at the Leicester Tigers ground) for much of the time has little to do – which might suggest a steadiness ‘green’ behaviour is called for, methodical and consistent. But if there is an incident such as a suspicious individual, or someone angry suddenly appears, this will call for another behaviour from the guard. p
Accidents happen
Accidents will always happen, said trainer Brian Gregory, who discussed the assessment, preparedness, response and recovery stages of emergency management.
In an emergency, he defined, not making a decision is not an option. Such a situation may not only be a fire, but anything not normal – a fraud, or staff not turning up for work. It’s not about reinventing the wheel, he stressed; most businesses have some procedures, but they maybe scattered. Take communication – just talking to each other is hard enough, he observed drily. It’s important to update staff email addresses and phone numbers, in case if there is a problem you dial the number and it’s wrong.
Fraud can be very difficult to find; but once found, it can be embarrassingly simple, a fraud consultant told the Reliance Security seminar in Leicester.
Caroline Waddicor of Hibis told a story of when she was standing in as a head of loss prevention: “There had been a robbery, and a store manager was just so odd; his behaviours were odd; he has a baseball bat in his store, that he was going to see everybody off with. The whole thing didn’t sit right.” Back at the office, she asked to look at the man’s CV; it said he had been to university, and had a pilot’s licence. Asking about his recruitment, she heard that the company had taken the CV to be so good. A check found that the manager had not been to that university; and he had a hot air balloon licence (expired). It turned out that the manager had organised the robbery. Caroline added: “That’s why it’s so important to check CVs and do vetting of your people.” Fraud awareness is something you need to be open about, to be able to look for signs, indicators of fraud. But as she admitted, it is not career-enhancing for a chief exec or head of security if there has been a deception or fraud inside their organisation. She urged organisations to take ‘whistle-blowing’ (featured in the May issue of Professional Security) seriously. The anonymous letter from a disgruntled mistress is probably very accurate, she suggested. Yet a chief exec with a whistle-blowing letter on his desk may well decide he is ‘Inspector Morse’ and bring the accused individual in. The accused denies it, and nothing is done; and in a year or two the fraud is detected. She suggested that more fraud is found by accident, rather than by internal controls or external audit. She urged recognition of what she called the ‘red flags’ such as a lavish lifestyle (why does someone have a Rolls-Royce in the staff car park? though managers may feel it is no business of theirs to investigate someone’s private life). Besides the security budget going on CCTV, asset tagging, test shoppers, and so on, she suggested looking at depots, and internal departments such as marketing, and maintenance. Who are the suppliers? What are the invoices saying? Are they vague, difficult to audit? What contracts use offshore accounts – or staff bank accounts?! Do some (discreet) data mining, she suggested.
Stressful
When a fraud is found, there are two types of investigation, she said: who did it, and who allowed it to happen. Everyone wants to be Insp Morse, she repeated, adding that there was a need to know who was the decision-maker, and who are the investigator – bearing in mind that an investigation is stressful and demoralising for the innocent staff.
