As 60% of companies that suffer a serious cybersecurity attack end up going out of business within a year, it’s important to take security seriously.
While you might think cybersecurity is out of the realm of your security staff’s job requirements, many breaches happen due to a perimeter breach. If there’s unsecured wi-fi on site, a parked car could hide a hacker who is using a laptop to break in under your security’s nose.
If you’re struggling to find staff that meets the bare minimum, try these five tactics.
1. Make Clear Requirements
If you’re stressed out that your officers aren’t trained to meet the minimum requirements that they need, you need to turn inward. If you’re not communicating what you need to your staff and they’re not delivering it, it’s possible that you haven’t communicated what you need clearly.
Start off with a brainstorming session. Get together with your management team, executives, and long-time employees. See what basic skills they need to have from the people who provide security.
Your officers should be able to provide what your customers and clients need while also giving support to staff and management. If they don’t know what they’re supposed to do, your team won’t meet those needs.
For more specific or unique tasks, make sure you’ve outlined your needs very clearly. If you need to walk people through complicated operations, make the time to give them the training they need. Otherwise, you set them up for failure.
2. Build a Team With Diverse Skills
Don’t expect every candidate to be a superhero, with all of the skills that you need them to have from day one. Instead, work on building a team with a diverse set of skills, strengths, and weaknesses. Think of your team the way that someone playing Dungeons and Dragons might put together their party.
For every strength in column A, you might find a weakness in column B.
If someone is good at customer service, they might not be as good at the technological aspects of the job. If they’re the expert on working with the drones, video cameras, and an alarm system on your site, they might not know how to survey the site well. When you build a strong team, you can expect that everyone will work to balance out all the skills you need to succeed.
If someone doesn’t have the skills they need, consider what they could bring to your team before you dismiss their candidacy. They could end up helping your team grow and expand in ways you’d never predict.
3. Train Them To Succeed
If you have great candidates who are missing some vital skill, perhaps they need some training. If you take the time to train your staff to succeed, you can ensure that they’ll not only do a job well, but they’ll do it the way that you want them to.
Success requires support and sometimes even experienced people develop bad habits at work. Once people start cutting corners, they’ll continue that trend until they’ve eliminated some key security component you’d never expect them to forget.
If you have a strong team, find team building or training exercises to put them through together to get everyone on the same page. It’s not uncommon that you’ll hear that one person is frustrated that a certain job isn’t being performed the way that it should be. Rather than having one person delegate to another person, a training session can be a friendly way to ensure that everyone is on the right path.
While staff members will meet the minimum requirements when you hire them, that minimum could slip over time. Annual training or staff outings could be a powerful refresher.
4. Do They Have a Career Trajectory?
One of the most important things for anyone starting a new job is to know that they can grow in their career. Everyone wants the opportunity to have a career trajectory where they can achieve new heights and work toward a goal.
If you’re not telling your applicants what they can achieve in their career, you’re not telling them any reason to meet your requirements. Finding someone who can meet your minimum requirements but who don’t have any goals means that you won’t be able to be surprised by them. Without a goal ahead of them or any reason to set their sights beyond the minimum, they will only bring the minimum day in and day out.
While you have some basic “minimum requirements” you really want your security staff to give you 100% every day. When they can see how giving you 100% can help them in the long run, you can be sure to always get the most out of them.
5. Hire a Great Recruiter
If you’re not looking in the right places, you’re not going to find the right candidates. You need to have a strong recruiter if you want to get candidates who meet your minimum job requirements.
If you’re currently with a recruiter who is giving you applicants who can’t meet your needs, it’s time to find a new recruiter.
Make sure you’re posting on sites where you can find good candidates. Tap into networks with retired police officers and look into resources where you can link up with veterans. Getting hard working people who know the meaning of good security should be your goal, not just meeting bare minimums.
Your Job Requirements Don’t Have to Be Bare Minimum
If you want to set job requirements that you think might be out of reach, don’t stop yourself. You should be able to hold your staff to a high standard if you want to ensure that your site is adequately secured. You don’t need to lower your standards to fill out your staff.
If you’re struggling to balance security needs with staff turnover, follow our guide to mitigate this problem.