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A visit to the Manchester offices of guarding firm the Corps of Commissionaires.
On the wall, just inside the door of the new Manchester regional office of the Corps of Commissionaires, hangs a portrait of the Queen, the Corps’ Chief Life Governor. Nearby are copies of the in-house magazine L’Esprit. These are reminders of the company’s past and its esprit de corps – making it historically different from other security companies. The image of a white-gloved uniformed commissionaire with peaked cap and formidably shined shoes at a major event – such as Wimbledon, or the Queen’s Jubilee – is an abiding one. But there lies the nub. The Corps still has a place in the niche corporate hospitality market – at Premier Leage football grounds, agricultural shows and the like – but it’s no more than a niche market, and Securicor have had the Wimbledon tennis fortnight contract for years. Britain has changed from the early, Victorian days of the Corps as an organisation for ex-soldiers; the Corps has had to change too.
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That much is apparent from the new office beside the Manchester Ship Canal, down the road from the regenerated Salford Quays area. The Corps has diversified; it runs a remote monitoring centre; and has gone down the facilities management route. The latest issue of L’Esprit name-drops contracts with Direct Line, and Cable and Wireless. Manchester area manager David Hilton mentions on his patch Peel Holdings (a property investment company in the north west, owners of the Manchester Ship Canal), and Kellogg, who have a cereal plant in the city. Blue-chip contracts, in the new flexible economy of telecoms and services, and not 9 to 5 firms. David reports that some of these companies have grown quite rapidly and the small security companies with the security contract have perhaps not been able to keep pace. Guarding alone is no longer economic. ‘There are too many hours when there is nothing to do. You enrich the job of the guard and at the same time carry out some minor but nonetheless important function, particularly through the night. I don’t want to give a lot of examples, because it differs from place to place.’ But it could be sorting the mail, or replenishing the water coolers and fax machines, tidying meeting rooms. Everyone’s a winner – the Corps can add value for a client, and the employee has a more responsible and rewarding job and can command a higher than minimum-wage salary (not hourly rate). And David reports that clients are becoming more educated about what they can get out of a security or facilties contract. One detail is that the change in attitude is reflected in a change in Corps uniform – clients maybe don’t want someone in what the Corps describe as (a sign of that in-house esprit again) a ‘full shout’ – white gloves and formal uniform. Yes, the typical Corps man and woman may wear the ‘full shout’ on a Saturday afternoon guarding the prawn sandwiches at Manchester United’s corporate rooms, but in the week it’s blazer and slacks to project the softer image the client wants. The client may want the Corps to provide the assistance to the facilities manager, or to provide that facilities manager. Whatever, the client does like to see a familiar face, someone reliable, who has been trained to do the particular job, someone who (for example) knows what morning newspapers to buy for who. The client might reward these familiar faces quite highly at Christmas, David adds.
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Playing devil’s advocate for a moment, can a contract security company offer a standardised national service’ David feels so: ‘We are quite a small island. I don’t notice regional differences and I have been with the Corps seven years. A commissionaire in London is no different to a commissionaire in Glasgow.If you recruit – and this is the important thing – the right people in the first place. You need people who don’t just want to baby-sit a building. I have recruited when I was in HR for Southend, and Bristol; it is the same job spec as in Manchester. We don’t find regional variances.’ The Corps does have a communications structure so that if something crops up on (say) the South coast, the other areas are made aware of it.
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David Hilton, one of the Corps’ ten area managers, has a typical Corps background – 23 years in the Royal Air Force as an air traffic controller. Then he worked for several years as a business development manager for a chamber of commerce. He has had a variety of roles: in human resources, training, and operations. He moved to his present position in January, from Leeds. His move along the M62 meant he gave up his position as chairman of the Yorkshire and Humberside committee of the BSIA. In a word, the Corps buck in the north west stops with David. ‘I manage the business and that encompasses ensuring client satisfaction, employee satisfaction, HR issues, discipline, and managing a fairly large budget. He will interview potential new staff of superviser level and above; below that level he has managers to do the interviewing for him: ‘I just don’t have that time.’ The company has broadened its traditional military intake, to include servants of the Crown, such as former prison officers and police. What of women’ David replies: ‘We would be happier employing more women.’ There is the question of whether shift work – four 12-hour shifts a week – is suitable for women. Job-sharing could be a way of encouraging women, he adds. At the end of the interview David returns to the question of change – both the pace of change within the industry, and the need to change perceptions of clients outside the industry. Old soldiers never die, the cliche goes, but the work they do on Civvy Street certainly changes.
