James Blight, CPP, Director for Paladin Security, takes a look at industry trends and how they could impact the guarding world. Blight is a 27-year veteran of the industry with a heavy focus on the retail sector. He’s been an instrumental part of numerous initiatives and transformations within the industry and is passionate about pushing it forward, actively working with clients and industry leaders on new approaches to improve security programs and further advance the industry.

 The Future of Security Guarding

In a world where technology is constantly evolving and solutions are available at your fingertips, the question arises: What is the future of security guarding, and what kind of services will be needed? Security-minded organizations understand the importance of partnering with forward-thinking security providers. They adopt policies and processes that constantly meet today’s risks.

For starters, it’s important to consider the role of a security guard, which will vary depending on the environment the guard is deployed in and how proactive they might be. For example, a guard in a healthcare or retail setting will have a more dynamic experience than a guard working overnight at a construction site. Any guarding position can be rewarding if the guard is engaged, meaning they are proactively seeking out opportunities to interact with visitors, performing patrols and duties diligently, and documenting patrols and incidents accordingly.

So, how do you future-proof your security programs to ensure a safe and secure site is maintained? It starts with curating the proper program to suit the client’s needs. Security plans should be designed with the specific environment and risk profile in mind. While there are certainly some basic security concepts that might apply in all cases, we need to look at the asset being protected and consider the specific threats and hazards likely to impact that asset and design any plans with these in mind. This includes getting a clear understanding of what is being protected as well as identifying the most relevant threats (human actions that might compromise the asset) and hazards (natural events that might compromise the asset). Risk assessments should include considerations of common threats and hazards and weigh the probability, vulnerability, and consequence of each to identify the risks that the guarding plan needs to guard against. This approach ensures that the guarding plan makes sense; it meets needs, protects against the right threats and hazards, and is defensible if criticized. The risk profile of the asset should be the guidepost for all programmatic decisions around scheduling, deployment, training, and drills and exercises. It also ensures time and resources are invested in the most effective way.

As technology evolves and takes on some of the work security guards do now, it will mean guards will be able to focus on the tasks that humans excel at, tasks that require intuition, interaction, and empathy. Technology is proving itself to be very good at replacing repetitive, mundane tasks, saving time and effort for security personnel. This will result in a more rewarding and productive work environment. To keep up with changes in the environment and the evolution of technology, it's important to complete a review of the risk profile annually. Doing so allows you to future-proof by staying on top of evolving trends.
Here is a more in-depth look at technologies that can aid security guarding:

CCTV Analytics: Humans are limited in terms of how many cameras they can watch effectively and for how long. As the number of camera feeds increases, so does the number of missed detections (ISO 11064 Part 5).

Watching one feed will result in 1% missed detection.

Watching 16 feeds will result in 5% missed detections.

Watching 26 feeds will result in 15% missed detections.

When we consider that many Security Operations Centres (SOCs) have guards watching dozens to hundreds of feeds, we start to understand the potential gap here. CCTV Analytics applied to critical camera feeds will help ensure that activity on those critical feeds is brought to the operator's attention and not missed.

Supervised Artificial Intelligence: Layered onto analytics, an AI solution sorts through the hits generated by analytics to identify "real" issues and discard false positives. Hits flagged by the AI solution are verified in real-time by a human operator (thus the "supervised" aspect of this solution). Supervised AI Solutions can sort through the noise of thousands to millions of hits generated by CCTV and Access Control Systems to find the real threats and ensure they are identified and escalated appropriately.

Mobile Reporting Solutions: 25 years ago, incident reports were written on paper by hand. As technology has evolved, so has incident reporting. Guards can now draft reports on the go with handheld devices that upload the report and photos in real time to the cloud. Real-time reporting has also moved from reactive reporting to predictive. AI has helped with this as it can assist with predicting incident probability and location by analyzing historical data.

As technology like AI continues to evolve, we will be able to split security guard tasks into two buckets: human tasks and robot tasks.

Human Tasks: tasks that require physical intervention, intuition, and empathy (arrests, first aid, de-escalation etc.). Humans generally enjoy these tasks and find them rewarding.

Robot Tasks: repetitive, mundane tasks (fire extinguisher checks, lighting audits, etc.). This would focus more on redundant tasks, which robots will complete without complaints.

The result will be more efficient security teams requiring fewer human resources, with the human guards being more engaged and having greater job satisfaction. It’s important to remember that as technology evolves and AI becomes more and more viable, autonomous solutions like robots and drones will become integrated into security programs and will either complement, supplement or replace human guards. That means human security jobs should be in high demand and require strong, soft skills (interpersonal skills, intuition, empathy) and the ability to work with technology. We should expect more requirements for security technicians who can install, maintain, and repair the evolving autonomous solutions. This could be comparable to the creative destruction we saw in the automobile manufacturing industry throughout the 20th century, as people performing repetitive assembly line tasks were replaced with automation solutions.

Yes, technology is changing and so too is the look of the security industry, but one thing that remains the same is the human side of guarding. Community engagement and empathy-led security are increasingly important, as technology can only do so much. Human interaction can make or break a situation in the security guarding industry. Challenges around the unhoused, drug addicted, and mental health afflicted are difficult to solve, and while technology will help detect and monitor related activity (loitering, sleeping, drug use, shelters, etc.), engagement by humans will still be required. Engaging with these communities will require empathy, intuition, compassion, and an understanding of the unique decision-making drivers at play with people in these communities. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is somewhat flipped for many people in these groups, and successful engagement requires building a rapport based on respect, empathy, and compassion in addition to a firm but fair approach.

While empathy can be intuitive, many of the related skills can be learned through training. The scope of training is generally related to the complexity of the environment. Foundational training required to maintain a security licence and basic first aid are ubiquitous, but some environments might require Incident Command/ Management System training or even training in counterterrorism concepts like behavioural baselining and pre-incident indicator recognition. Training gives security guards a platform to succeed in almost any environment, something technology can’t duplicate.

Futureproofing the security industry isn’t a one-step process. As technologies evolve, so will the response. Having a risk profile in place, hiring the right people and training them to the highest standard goes a long way. Remember, technology can do many things, but it can’t replace the impact human interaction can have.

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