From the August print magazine.
Cutting the cost of SIA licensing for CCTV control room operators is this month’s theme for Mike Tennent, Director of Training, Tavcom Training (www.tavcom.com).
In the old days, good or bad, depending on your perception, security systems training was sometimes viewed as a bit of a costly luxury. How times have changed! With the arrival of SIA licensing, the selection, assessment and training of CCTV control room operators are suddenly critical issues. The question is no longer ‘shall we train and test our staff?’ but ‘how do we choose them, who will train them and how much will it all cost?’
Pitfalls for unwary
These are crucial questions as serious financial pitfalls lay in wait for the unwary. If you have responsibility for a control room how will you make certain that your finances are invested wisely to produce healthy dividends in human and monetary terms? To put that in starker terms, how can you ensure you do not squander your precious funds on recruits who fail to reach SIA standards or on training companies who cannot deliver the goods?
TV skills
First things first. Historically, careful selection of staff has been a generally neglected part of running a control room. Many people have been accepted with a fairly rudimentary interviewing process and a basic check of credentials. For some employers, the fact that applicants have watched television has been sufficient to show skills for observation in a CCTV control room. Such an approach is no longer viable. The goal posts have now been moved – and that’s official! If you are not going to waste your money watching a team of new recruits fail to get their licences, you need to find a reliable way of talent spotting or ‘parting the wheat from the chaff’. There are several ways of attempting this; some more successful than others.
Experience
One way is to see if people have had any experience in other CCTV control rooms. This certainly has advantages in getting someone who should be familiar with the workings of a control room, but gives no real indication of how good the person is at detection in your working environment. Unless you know the pedigree of the site where the operator comes from, you may well inherit somebody else’s low performer.
Psychometric tests
Getting an independent test to see if people have the relevant potential is another approach. This has the advantage of measuring people not yet exposed to the industry but who may do well in it. An independent test of skills allows new and experienced people to be evaluated equally. Psychometric tests have been a popular method for selection, but the relevance of these to specific competencies required for CCTV is often unclear.
Video content
An alternative has been to use actual video content and assess people in this way on how much they have picked up. This makes a great deal of sense – to get people who will be good at registering incidents, show them the same kind of material they will be working with. However, applicants who have worked with CCTV before will immediately be at an advantage in that they should know how and what to look for. People not exposed to CCTV will also not be aware, unless informed, of what to look for. They may see several issues totally unrelated to the things that the person doing the testing wants to know. Each person comes in with their own perspective and a preference for viewing certain things. That the things they notice don’t have anything to do with what the assessor is testing is hardly their fault. People therefore have to be fully aware of what kinds of things they have to notice and pay attention to, and this then has the potential of turning it into a bit of a memory exercise rather than a test of observation skills per se.
Screen-based assessment
For many prominent bodies – including Sussex Police and Broadmoor Hospital in the UK – the most successful and cost-effective solution has been the Surveillance and Monitoring Assessment Exercise (SAMAE). This idea of South African industrial psychologist Dr Craig Donald is a screen-based assessment exercise that uses unique test graphics and looks specifically at tasks that measure observation skills and on-going vigilance. Candidate performance is easily interpreted by graphs and reports in ‘plain English’.
Thousands saved
With a small initial outlay such organisations have potentially saved thousands of pounds which would otherwise have been wasted interviewing and training individuals who ultimately proved to be lacking in the skills required of a good control room operator. So, you’ve chosen people with potential but that’s only one side of the coin. You must now make certain that you get maximum ‘bang’ for your training ‘buck’ by choosing your training company wisely. What should you look for in this respect? Students who attend training courses expect -and need – to learn using workshops equipped with state of the art technology. They expect – and need – to be taught by industry specialists with years of ‘real world’ experience. They are right to have those expectations and good training companies should be happy to provide them. So, if possible, inspect work-shops and classrooms and arrange to meet the tutors for your chosen course. Satisfy yourself that they have relevant depth of teaching and technical experience. Choose companies and courses which offer independently verified and internationally recognised certification such as BTEC. Look for accreditation by respected security industry bodies such as SIA, SITO and the BSIA and the ‘preferred supplier’ status conferred by the ECA, the Career Transition Partnership and others.
Necessity
In our increasingly regulated world, good security systems training is becoming less of an option and more of a necessity. It can be a significant investment, but one which will produce impressive returns if you choose your recruits and your training company with care. Above all, do not make the mistake of thinking that training is something you can – or should – avoid. As one of our tutors once famously remarked: “There may be a cost associated with learning … but nothing compared to the cost of ignorance.”
Packs available now
The Security Industry Authority (SIA) began issuing licence application packs for public space surveillance CCTV operators on June 27.
From March 20, 2006 it will be a legal requirement for CCTV operators (supplied under contract) to hold an SIA licence. That’s also the deadline day for contract guards and close protection and cash in transit staff. p
For licence application packs ring the SIA call centre on 0870 2430 100 or visit:
