In 2004 we interviewed Ian Hall, then Area Manager for London and the South East for guarding company. The Corps, after he gained a masters degree in security and risk management from the University of Leicester. Five years on, and he’s Managing Director of AIM Security Consultants, putting into practice what he learned. He spoke again to Mark Rowe.
Businesses finding the going tough may turn less of a blind eye to fraud and other wrong-doing by staff – which once looked into, could turn into cans of worms?
In 2004, Ian Hall gained a masters degree in security and risk management from the University of Leicester. Five years on, having left Corps Security as a Regional Director after nearly ten years, he’s Managing Director of AIM Security Consultants, putting into practice what he learned. For his masters, he concentrated on business continuity and risk management, topics he found of particular interest, that he’s now making use of for clients. So the hard work – and in 2004 he warned that taking a masters while still doing your day job in operations meant long nights of study – has led to this new challenge. "It definitely enhanced my skills," he said, looking back. "I looked at security in a completely different way, rather than just seeing ‘perhaps we need two guards’ [rather than one] or a different type of camera and CCTV monitoring." His advice then is still, by all means do a masters degree, if you know your employer will use it, or you are seeking some specialism. "It won’t instantly get you a promotion or £20,000 pay rise but you will be viewed as a specialist rather than just another security manager." His work at AIM – it was bought out last year by an Australian pre-employment screening company seeking to enter the UK and Europe markets – is largely security consultancy; also close protection; translation services; and surveillance and corporate intelligence work, such as due diligence if a business is looking to buy another business. Ian’s previous experience was as a Royal Marines officer (where he won the Military Cross) and as a police officer with the Diplomatic Protection Group.
VIP arrangements
While AIM does translation work for police in the UK, it offers translators to close protection teams in Africa or the Middle East, say. What might be offered is arrangements for a VIP already with their own close protection team, who however will not know where is safe to get a burger downtown in a South Africa city. There may be overlap between the services, such as when carrying out due diligence on a business or individual – some of it with permission, some from publicly-available places, some maybe covertly – a client may require some staff screening.
Checks
Mike Chapman is EMEA CEO on the screening side. The UK, he says, outside regulated industries that require staff checks such as financial services, airlines (for airside), and security guarding, has a fairly low uptake of checking. Partly, he says, because of business inertia, partly lack of education, or it’s just the way UK business is. It tends to be the American blue-chips forcing their UK offices to adopt US practice – drug testing before you take up a job, for instance, being common in the States. Mike Chapman argues for screening whether for a guarding company or general business to be out-sourced to a specialist rather than the proverbial ‘Janet in the corner’ who doesn’t do the difficult checks and who goes home without being able to reach the shift manager who’s given a reference. As for the recession, Mike suggests there’s embellishment of CVs. Similarly Ian Hall suggests that clients are reporting they are finding business crime ‘cans of worms’ – and as Mike Chapman puts it, if your company is growing 20 per cent a year, you don’t look carefully at what you can consider as small staff fiddles; if you are shrinking by five per cent, you do look. "We like to talk to clients about re-screening individuals. Again, this is an American practice, where they will, at a senior to mid-level, routinely screen at a two or three year level." An employee might be charged with a crime, or convicted, and the employer not know. Hence an integrity and credit check, in case of money laundering; or if you have lost your driving licence, and not told your employer, though you have to drive for work. If you carry on driving and have an accident, what then? Similarly if football clubs run a soccer school, the brand could be badly damaged if coaches are found to do something improper; hence the call for checking every couple of years. "So it’s an evolving market place and an evolving set of services," Mike Chapman says.
