Some security operatives complain that their clients are completely daft about the business risks that they take, writes our regular contributor Peter Whitehead.
Sometimes guards are right about their feelings, but If they could be introduced to the three Rs of risk identification, assessment and reaction then this might help them to appreciate companies’ risk-decisions. Many years ago a supermarket’s chief executive visited a provincial store. He asked a security guard about his duties and I stood nearby (working as a store detective) and listened. The guard pointed out that a new directive instructed that all high value spirits must be placed inside their boxes for easy purchase, and that this ridiculous order was the cause of many thefts. ‘The thieves come in and steal these, and so the shelves are refilled for the thieves to steal again! This is just crazy!’
The chief executive answered: ‘We are losing hundreds of customers each week because they cannot buy their favorite spirits without having to wait around at the till points whilst staff search for the correct bottle. Their frozen selections are defrosting, and they don’t see why they should be held up. So they decide to try another store, and we can then lose all of their business into the future over one item. We need to try new ideas, measure, review, and if necessary change our minds … or not! We need your total support for all of our loss prevention initiatives!’
Part of the difficulty is that the media chooses our fools and heroes for us. We could read that a child who races go-carts is very brave, but on the next page read that Bill Bradley of Wenterton got up from bed and fell down stairs to his death …. the fool … having stairs and only a downstairs toilet …. crazy! Some 35 years ago I was used to a particular type of risk, and after designing and building very small sea rowing boats I would row them considerable distances …. across the outer Thames Estuary to Colchester, or over the North Sea to Belgium and Holland. I would catch up with sleep by ‘hulling’ in the zone which separates northerly from southerly sea traffic, and was once picked up and thrown aside by the bow wash of a huge ‘rogue’ ship. My boats and journeys were featured in a boating magazine, and many people copied my designs, but the press could have reacted in any direction at all. Because newspaper reporters write with hindsight, all ventures that fail are stupid unless the public might wish to see them as brave, and most successes are heroic or ingenious, and for security people it can eventually alter their mindsets adversely.
If guards cannot understand client’s decisions to do with risk then they cannot appreciate how companies decide to accept, transfer, reduce or completely remove them. I once knew a store guard who would have returned his store to counter service only, and in so doing cause the failure of that whole retail company within a few months, with loss of shareholders’ funds, employee’s livelihoods and the valuable service which was extended to the customers. That guard’s idea of protection was total destruction.
And so, three subjects that I would like to see added to guarding curricula are Risk Identification, Risk Assessment and Risk Reaction, the three Rs of security, whether surveying for an intruder alarm, coping with shoplifting gangs, transporting valuables, siting cameras or security on the internet ….. internet security …. now that really is ‘hulling’ in the separation zone!
