Why Your Security Firm Needs Its Own Training Standard

4 Min. Read

What does success look like for a security firm? It depends on who you ask, but many will cite delivering reliable, high-quality security services. Some will also mention trust and leadership.

Trustworthiness and quality stem from solid internal practices. Besides acting as a compass for your firm, internal best practices create clear guidelines for security guards and ensure everyone is on the same page.

The first step toward developing a set of best practices that will set your security firm apart from the rest is the creation of a training standard. Here’s why.

The Security Industry Lacks Training Standards

Security professionals don’t have much to rely on in terms of official training quality standards. There is a push for adopting legislation at the state level, with 14 states currently reviewing proposals for stronger oversight into security training and best practices.

However, training standards remain inexistent or highly fragmented from one state to another. It creates the following challenges for security firms:

• Communicating about quality can be challenging. There is no official frame of reference or industry-wide standard that customers can use to assess quality.

• It also means new hires with previous experience in the industry aren't always on the same page; they could apply best practices that don’t match your expectations.

With the current trend of states adopting their own rules and requirements, it can pay to get ahead and develop your own internal training standards.

Why You Need Internal Training Standards

As a security firm, adopting your own internal training standards has two key benefits:

• It’s a strong differentiator. These standards will set you apart from the competition and inspire trust from customers. Besides, communicating about your standards sets a clear frame of reference that will help customers better understand how you guarantee quality.
• Having your own training standards creates clear expectations for new hires and existing employees. It ensures everyone follows the same best practices and creates a culture where security guards are accountable for meeting these expectations.

Clear Graduation Requirements for New Hires

Training quality starts with new hires. Set clear expectations from the beginning by developing a graduation program with specific benchmarks new recruits have to meet:

• Break down the graduation program into smaller steps and provide new hires with a timeline. For a more flexible experience, consider digital training over in-person classes so new guards can complete the program on their own time.
• Use testing tools to measure readiness objectively. Test scores can be a benchmark to measure progress and identify areas where a new hire might need more training.
• Offer support throughout this training program. While digital training allows new hires to study the material on their own time, having a training lead they can refer to can enhance accountability.

Continuous Security Training for Existing Employees

Your internal training standards should include continuous training. Here’s why:

• Providing regular training refreshers is crucial for maintaining quality.
• It also helps your firm keep up with changing industry best practices.
• As you get contracts with new customers, providing continuous training will help security guards adapt to their unique requirements.
• Access to continuous training contributes to employee engagement and fosters a sense of ownership and accountability when it comes to honing security skills.

A successful continuous security training program requires clear benchmarks to measure progress. Digital training solutions have a clear advantage since they allow users to track their progress in the long-term, creating a clear picture of their professional development journey.

Audit Regularly for Skills Gaps

Regular audits provide a valuable opportunity to take a critical look at how your training program is performing. For an objective assessment of your results, testing tools can be helpful.

If your audits reveal skills gaps, your next step should be to update your training standards to address these gaps.

Setting Clear Objectives

Stay on the right track by setting clear goals for your training program. Goals help guide training at the organization, team, and individual levels.

Each goal you set should have a measurable metric you can track, as well as a timeline. For instance, you could work toward achieving a 90% graduation rate within a month of hiring a new cohort.

Employee Engagement

Digital security training is a great option for facilitating engagement with on-demand learning material.

Combined with internal training standards, access to on-demand training encourages employees to take ownership of their professional development journey and play a more active role in their training. It’s an important factor for security guard retention.

To boost employee engagement, it’s important to set achievable training standards with a clear definition of what success looks like.

Set the Bar High With the Defencify Academy

Setting your own security training standards will set your firm on the path to success, but you don’t have to do it alone.

Since 2017, Defencify has been a leader in security training. Our goal is to set the bar for training standards across the industry.

We’ve created Defencify Academy, a three-tier training system, to guide your guards through material aligned with the ASIS Guidelines for Security Officer Training. The result? A clear path to success for your workforce.

Click here to explore the Defencify Academy and see how it sets the bar for high-quality security training.