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Who is Responsible:
I ask you, who is responsible for telling the frontline security officer that there is a
career path in the security industry?
And before anyone says that there are great initiatives happening, such as
apprenticeships, the Security Skills initiative from the Security Industry Authority
and all the other initiatives that are happening for the security industry - Will this
be enough for a frontline Security Officer?
Manage. By Karol Doherty MSyI My experience is that you cannot make everyone a good manager of people, but
they can become good security professionals.
We all talk about the professionalisation of the security industry, and well, I am
going to quote something here that I know the people reading this article have
heard before.
“You would not go to a doctor or a solicitor that is not qualified. So, why would
you employ a security professional that has no qualifications?”

This is where the academic route comes into play, but most frontline security
officers feel that the academic route is expensive, challenging, time-consuming
and most importantly, they see themselves as not confident in their own ability.
We know that a good professional Security Officer can deter, detect, delay, and
deny. They are the shop window of the security industry, and they are what the
public see as the entirety of the security industry. In my experience, the frontline
security officer gets into the industry to protect, and not to manage, adn when
or if they decide to progress, they do not see the security industry as the bigger
picture. What I mean here is, the protector does not see the manager mitigating
the risk from the organisation and if he/she wants to progress this is what they
need to understand.

Conclusion:
I ask you again who is responsible for explaining to the frontline security officer
that there is a career in the security industry?
The reason I am asking you is because you would not be a member of the
Security Institute if you did not want to professionalise the security industry.
The professional bodies/membership bodies have a big part to play in
professionalising the industry and I know if I did not find the Security Institute
I would not have progressed to where I am today. Of course, you do not need
to have an academic qualification or to be part of a membership body to be a
professional, but it helps! - and my experience from transitioning and progressing
from a frontline security officer, to completing academic qualifications, to today
where I am a client of a security service provider, shows that I am an example
of this. But if the Security Officer does not know that there are qualifications or
bodies like the Security Institute out there in security management, then we all as
Security Professionals and members of the Security Institute are responsible to
spread the word.

As professionals that hold membership with the Security Institute, we all have a
responsibility to speak with the frontline security officer and show them that there
is a career in the security industry. Together we can direct them on a path to be
able to professionalise the security industry. Whether you are a security service
supplier, a client, or a consultant we all have a responsibility to direct, educate,
and show the frontline security officer that there is a career path that they are
able to follow within the security sector.

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