Introduction

Sometimes an organization wants to leverage the expertise and resources of a leading security firm but resists because of concern about transitioning to contract security and its potential disruption on security and organizational operations.

Opportunity

A major healthcare group decided—to meet goals for financial, organizational, and operational effectiveness—to restructure its 42-member security force to an all-contract force, using 6 strategies to effectively mitigate risk and quickly get new officers up to speed, according to a case study presentation at a major international security conference by its Director of Corporate Safety, Security and Building Services.  

Solution or Approach

The healthcare organization employed 6 key strategies.

Rapid transition. In-house officers were given a final employment date of 60 days from notification but did not ask officers to work posts during that time to minimize risk from a potentially disgruntled employee.

Using a vendor with whom they had an existing relationship. The Hospital ‘pre-contracted’ with its chosen security partner for several months (providing officers on an as-needed basis) and then expanded their contract for the transition.

Vendor coordination. Security department leaders held weekly status meetings with the contract security vendor for six weeks to facilitate the transition.

Preparing contract officers. Because there was no time for on-the-job training, the Health Group sent the security vendor computers loaded with its security department’s systems for visitor management, incident reporting, and card access, so contract officers could receive training on them at their own offices in advance of arriving for duty.

IT coordination. Because of the overnight switch to contract officers, the Security Director coordinated with IT staff on a special process by which new contract officers could obtain computer IDs prior to their being on-site.

Provide help to displaced staff. The company wrote job descriptions for new exempt-level security positions that were created because of the change and any negatively affected in-house security officer was encouraged to apply. Also, the vendor was present on the day of notification meetings with staff to offer displaced officers a chance to apply for positions with the vendor (which several did).

Results and Benefits

The actual transition was efficient and incident-free. Example: Giving the new contract officers advanced understanding of the hospitals’ security processes had practical payoffs, including when the vice-president of human resources forgot his badge the very first morning the new contract force was in place. “He said, ‘I expected there would be an issue with me to get on the property and get a loaner badge, but that new guy at the gate knew exactly what he needed to do,’ recounted the company’s security director.