Scale Your Operations with Security Guards' App
Introduction
In the age of digital transformation, being successful in the security industry comes down to efficient staff management and reliability. Automating staff management with the right software solution while providing security guards with a powerful app designed to make their work easier and create custom reports for your clients will provide a competitive edge.
Security Industry Challenges
It is important to define the present challenges for understanding what features will be most needed for your security company. This provides a way to make an informed decision for the most optimal and cost-efficient product. While each company faces their own obstacles to overcome and grow, the following are some of the most dominant ones in the industry.
Recruiting and Retaining Qualified Staff
Finding and hiring qualified security guards is the cornerstone of a successful security company. In addition to appropriate skill sets and experiences, having the necessary certifications and licences in place is paramount. Retaining staff can also pose challenges, as security guards often work long hours in difficult environments.
Staff management can be extremely inefficient and costly, but this can be combated with the right scheduling software solution. The chosen platform should have a staff data management capability for storing employee contact information, qualifications, training, certifications, licences, documents and other vital information.
Some staff data management platforms can ramp up costs quickly and hamper your company's growth. Choosing a solution with a no-per-user pricing model will help scale your operations as the employee database can continually grow. This will also help retain your staff as a part-time or temporary workforce as their contact information can be stored in the system indefinitely without additional costs.
Scheduling Security Guards
Even when implementing a comprehensive database, utilising this for actual work requires either a massive amount of paperwork, manual tasks on spreadsheets or a staff scheduling software solution.
A successful security company should be able to build multiple security teams to cover different post sites at any given moment. Each post site may have its own requirements for security teams, such as language proficiency or first aid training and specific tasks that must be completed within a shift.
When choosing the right security scheduling software provider, make sure it covers your specific needs, such as live notifications for mobile devices, complex shift patterns and different day view options, for having a better overview of overnight shifts.
Tracking Time and Attendance
Time tracking is a critical aspect of any security staffing agency. While clocking in has also gone through a major digital transformation leaving pen & paper timesheets to the past, not every software solution may provide sufficient features.
A security guard's time clock should provide GPS tracking to ensure that employees clock in after arriving at the client site. This will prevent any conflicts between your company and clients regarding no-shows from a security guard.
When choosing the right time-tracking provider, it can be extremely beneficial to look at it in terms of timesheets-to-payroll processes. Having a solution that offers capabilities for customisable pay rates can automate the work on timesheets.
Complying with Regulations
Security staffing companies face both industry-specific requirements and labour regulations. The former can be handled with a good staff data management platform that should provide options for document uploads and expiration dates. Different types of post sites may also require specific training or language skills. A comprehensive scheduling system will automatically filter out the right security guards for each post site to prevent manual work in this regard.
It is equally essential for management to ensure compliance with labour laws. Scheduling software should provide an overview of working hours to guarantee that employees meet their working hours and salaries according to any legislative framework while considering their age and experience.
Providing Guard Tour Reports
Being able to submit guard tour reports for each client site can be crucial for building and maintaining a positive reputation. Some projects may even have this as a mandatory requirement.
Having a digital guard tour system implemented will streamline this process substantially. This can include a security guard app and an NFC tag for each checkpoint within the guard tour route. This way, managers could reduce their manual work as they only need to export and pass down logs to clients.
Ensuring Lone Worker Safety
Staffing agencies must also manage liability and risk associated with their operations, including ensuring their personnel are adequately trained and insured. Risk assessments should also be conducted to know exactly what kind of risks or hazards employees could encounter while on the job. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) must be provided depending on post sites and work environments.
Regular check calls can not be overlooked in this regard. But carrying these out manually can become exceedingly costly when simultaneously operating dozens or even hundreds of security guards. Customisable automatic check calls in a lone worker safety app would streamline this process while reducing administrative costs and ensuring staff safety.
Managing Operational Costs
Staffing agencies must manage their costs effectively to remain competitive, which can be challenging given the high costs associated with recruiting and training personnel. As your company scales and the entire security guard team grows, management costs regarding employee schedules and payrolls will also escalate.
It is positive when scheduling processes can be streamlined via a smart stand-alone solution, but even better if your staff management can operate on one platform for quick scheduling, automated communication and timesheet approval.
Choosing the Right Software Provider
Today's digital technology offers numerous options for overcoming the previously described challenges. But many apps focus only on certain challenges present in security operations. Having several different security teams and software solutions set up for each issue can be another kind of administrative nightmare while ramping up costs extremely quickly.
PARiM Staff Management Software provides an all-in-one solution with
Staff database with an unlimited number of free users
Employee scheduling software with specific features for the security industry
GPS Time Clock in a free security guard app
Guard Tour System with NFC tags and iBeacon for checkpoints
Automated Check Calls to ensure lone worker safety
This results in one cloud-based platform that offers separate views for management and staff members. Your employees don't need to carry multiple devices as PARiM's powerful mobile app works as a security guard app, calendar, time clock and mobile patrol app while providing your company with GPS tracking, task management and automatic check-in calls.
Benefits of PARiM Security Guard App
Having all of your security operations on one platform will provide a multitude of benefits for your company.
Scale Your Operations
Most staff scheduling software and security guard app providers offer their software as a service priced by the number of users. This can hamper growth and minimise the possibility of utilising a temporary workforce.
PARiM Staff Management Software offers no-per-user pricing, meaning you can add as many staff members as needed to the database and not worry if your workforce capability can keep up with your sales. Costs will increase by the scheduled hour following your revenue and making it a risk-free model.
Automate Communication and Offer Flexibility
With the PARiM security guard app, you can enhance communication effectively, providing automated live notifications for all relevant openings considering shift requirements and employee training. Staff members can apply to open shifts on their security guard app so that management can avoid sending unnecessary emails and SMS.
Mobile app empowers your staff, providing the flexibility to work full-time or part-time and prefer specific sites and hours. For management, automatic notifications to the security guard app ensure that no relevant staff member will miss a job opening and open shifts will get filled faster.
Build and Maintain a Positive Reputation
Maintaining a positive reputation is crucial for security staffing agencies, as clients are more likely to choose partners based on their reliability and renown. This can be challenging given the competitive nature of the security industry and the potential for negative publicity in the event of security incident reports.
But these risks can be managed. PARiM GPS tracking provides geofencing capabilities to ensure that staff members clock in on-site, increasing workforce accountability. Our Guard tour system lets security guards scan NFC or iBeacon checkpoints with their mobile app while providing timestamps for each checkpoint.
Offering guarantees for lone worker safety will also steer your security guard company's reputation in the right direction while simultaneously building it in the job market. For the latter, offering the flexibility described in the previous section ensures that your company will be the most resistant to any labour shortages.
Improve Management Efficiency
Streamlining scheduling and automating communication frees up most of your management's time resources. This can provide a great opportunity for lateral movement to sales or vertical movement as your company can take on more clients and scale quickly.
Create Custom Reports
PARiM provides security guard companies with custom business reports to overview your operational efficiency and revenue. You can access team reports to see timesheets, absence summaries, labour costs and other critical data.
Receive Unparalleled Customer Support
PARiM offers onboarding support to help agencies get started with the software. We provide technical support to help agencies with any issues they may encounter while using the software, including troubleshooting, bug fixes, and software updates. PARiM offers customisation services for large-scale operations to help agencies tailor the software to their specific needs.
Learn From Others
Choosing the right security guard app should always be done by getting to know the experiences of other staffing companies.
Event Support Team in the UK grew from 50 staff members to 387 in less than two years after switching to PARiM.
Eastern Security Corporation grew to over 500 employees with PARiM, providing security services for New York Metropolitan area and benefitting from our guard tour system.
Try the Solution Yourself
The best way to understand if a software solution is right for your company is to try it out yourself. Our free trial offers all of the features needed for security guard companies.
Create a free trial account to try out security guard software free for 14 days.
Add as many employees as needed to the database.
Let your staff download PARiM security guard app from Google Play Store or iOS App Store.
Start scheduling shifts and have your staff members apply to open shifts in the app.
Let your staff clock in on-site from the app.
Use NFC tags to scan checkpoints and submit guard tour reports to your clients.
Set up automatic check calls to check in on lone workers.
Approve timesheets in bulk and export them to payroll.
You can also let us guide you through the process personally – book a free demo here to have a call with our experts to get PARiM security guard software to scale your business.
