It's More Than Price

Apr 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By MICHAEL FICKES

ONCE A SECURITY DIRECTOR has decided to outsource with a contract guard service, the next challenges involve selecting a contract firm and then establishing and managing the relationship.

There are two ways of looking at the management issue. If a company subs out a service, should it not let the skilled people that it has hired do what they do? Once the work has been accomplished, then the security director can evaluate and manage.

The other school of thought favors hands-on management. Whether the facility in need of protection is a warehouse or a major downtown office building, there is no room for mistakes. The security director must maintain tight control over the work of the contractor.

Experts from the contract and corporate side of the equation seem to agree: When managing a contract guard service, a hands-on policy yields the best results.

Close relationships can begin during selection

“From a contractor's point of view, the biggest mistake corporate clients make is selecting a contractor solely on price,” says Gary Kuty, CEO of Kuty and Associates LLC, a Dayton, Ohio-based management and marketing agency for the private security industry.

Security directors that buy the lowest bid may end up getting just what they paid for. Some companies will always “lowball” bids just to get a piece of business, and selecting a low bidder may mean that guards will be receiving low wages, poor training and little qualified management supervision by the contractor. “A contractor barely earning a profit will not care about managing an account tightly and efficiently,” Kuty says.

Then again, no one wants a cheap, obviously poor contractor. Do security directors not look for the lowest qualified bidder?

Yes, but how does a security director go about selecting the lowest qualified bidder? Kuty says security directors should level the playing field by setting base wages for security officers and supervisors in the request for proposal. RFPs should also set base benefit packages, training requirements and other standards necessary to performing successfully on the contract. “This is the only way to compare apples with apples when you size up the bids,” Kuty says.

Equally important, RFPs with specific requirements can signal a security director's inclination toward hands-on management from the beginning of the relationship.

Kuty urges security directors to manage contract security guard services on a day-to-day basis. “I have consulted on jobs where the security director has not seen the security company's managers or representatives for three to four months,” Kuty says. He recommends regular meetings with the contract firm's senior managers to prevent small complaints from festering.

Interview every guard personally

Keith Kambic, CPP, agrees with the hands-on management approach. Kambic, director of security and life safety at Chicago's Sears Tower, which is managed by his employer, CB Richard Ellis, takes the idea of managing a continuing relationship with outsourced security officers seriously.

“I interview every security officer and every single security person that comes onto my property,” Kambic says. “We are oriented toward customer service. You cannot let an officer that will not become part of this kind of culture onto the team. If I think that someone does not fit our mold, I send him or her back right away.”

As a result, Kambic's contract security agency, AlliedBarton, has grown to understand what kinds of officers make Kambic comfortable. Those are the officers that the firm sends for interviews.

Kambic does not hesitate to forge direct relationships with AlliedBarton's project supervisor, shift supervisors and officers, either. “A contract security agency does not mean that your management responsibilities are gone,” he says. “When dealing with a contract security firm, my goal is to empower the on-site supervisors by working with them to set policies. At the same time, I hold them personally responsible for their work.”

Kambic regularly meets with each of the 70 security officers assigned to the Sears Tower. He sees those working the second and third shifts by showing up on those shifts a couple times every month. He has learned the first names of all the officers as well as some piece of personal information that he asks about when he sees them.

In addition, Kambic regularly develops training programs for officers, in cooperation with AlliedBarton's site manager, who carries out the training.

“At the Sears Tower, we have 108 elevators, four stairwells and 10,000 people,” Kambic says. “So before an officer steps onto a post, he or she has to go through safety training, building navigation training, and the basics of operating the site.”

Kambic also develops monthly training sessions on topics such as customer service, computer training and recognizing improvised explosive devices.

During the holidays at the end of the year, Kambic and the AlliedBarton supervisors throw an appreciation breakfast for the officers on a Saturday morning.

Every month, Kambic and the supervisors select a “Security Officer of the Month” and present him or her with a plaque, recognition in front of the others and a day off with pay. “That goes a long way,” Kambic says.

Results at Sears Tower

Kambic's tightly-managed ship pays dividends in the form of low turnover among officers. “At the end of the day, one of our security officers might find another job up the street that pays 25 cents per hour more,” Kambic says. “A lot of people in that income bracket would change jobs for a quarter an hour. But we treat people like human beings here. And I think that is why not many officers leave.”

The turnover rate of security officers at the Sears Tower does seem unusually low for an industry that regularly suffers turnover rates of 100 percent and higher. According to Kambic, about 10 of his 70 officers left during 2005. That's a turnover rate of just under 15 percent. “We might run between 10 percent to 20 percent year in and year out,” he says. “I really believe that is the result of a personal touch.”

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This page offers an opportunity for readers to share management lessons they have learned and to provide other helpful information to their peers in the industry. To offer suggestions, or to contribute to this page, contact Larry Anderson at (770) 618-0118 or e-mail larry.anderson@penton.com.

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