The City of London Leads The Way

The SSR® Support Staff Rewards Survey measures a broad cross of information, with a focus on the top quartile of blue chip corporations who operate either proprietary or contract security staffing.   The survey overviews approximately 40,000 individuals in a broad range of security management and officers environments collected from our database of 242,000 total applicants and newspaper advertising. 

Summary 

The highest salaries or hourly rates are to be found in the City of London and Canary Wharf.  It is here that organisations remain committed to delivering ‘first person contact’ as part of the visitor experience.  In 2007 incomes rose by approximately 3.3% for the security operative against a UK average 2.9% as measured by the National Statistics Office.

Who to work for?  
Across the UK there are pockets of ‘high pay rates’ for quality front of house personnel.

This is driven by the trading sector of the client rather than geographical location.  The financial services sector is the highest remunerator.  Cost control is a vital business focus.    Over the next 12 months there will be greater emphasis on technology solutions to achieve this.   Wage rates cannot be cut, for many companies however, they will be forced to realign staff head count.   There continues to be a transition to migrant labour as they are paid up to 20% less than local staffing.  This is a short-term gain. 

Developing Your Workforce

Staff attrition is not caused through being low paid, but the counter balance of an exceptional individual sometimes undertaking the more menial of tasks.  A recent survey ( by Towers Perrin ) of workers’ attitudes across 40 countries,  found that 79% of employees were not motivated by the company’s (senior management) engagement with them.  Surprisingly   36% of responders found that stress was a good motivating factor in their employment.   Where security (ultimately service providers) organisations have a work life balance of shifts (not more than 48 hour rosters) diversity of duties and a culture of respect, attrition is less than 5% per annum. Whilst the Security Industry Authority cannot provide a regional breakdown of the licensed force, the South East region, we believe, employs approximately 50% (60,000) of the SIA licence holders. There are approximately 6,000 managers in the security sector, organisations such as TSI or ASIS need to attract and engage with them.   In terms of numbers of security personnel employed per square foot, the West End of London probably leads when including uniformed and plain cloths officers, this causes local wage inflation given the life threatening nature of their role. 

In terms of averaged pay across the UK population of 122,000 security officers London leads with a median of £7.90 per hour with the lowest being the North East at £5.89 per hour according to Pay Point and the SSR® online survey .  Disparity in pay within a region can be as much as 40%. 

Management Development   

Consultation groups in the skills body, Skills for Security, are actively working on an Occupational Standard for the security sector to support a career path which maybe the SIA could mandate, that ( by 2010 ) managers should commence a standard of development requisite with any other function.  Operational middle management is the most under-developed group of individuals in the private security sector.  A lack of appreciation leads to many capable people leaving the contract security sector as they see little career progression.  The talent chain in some vendors is severely constricted and is totally at odds with the recognised development formula.

What is urgently required is to ensure employees have better business skills, which can inspire individuals in the delivery of service leading to a greater business interaction that most clients will welcome.

This would encourage ownership in the management discipline.  It should be for the management designation to be able to understand the business basics of budget control, people development, service enhancement and innovation.

Challenging the Future

Retaining contracted work forces on temporary contracts (retained on an hours worked basis – the UK model ) will come under pressure from the EU as an outmoded employment regime.

It is imperative that contracted clients protect themselves from improper contractors.  The next phase of out-sourced development is to regard the contractor as the focus of knowledge.  Are you able to interchange resources to meet a particular problem?   Can your contractor demonstrate minimum KPIs of 98% contract performance, 5% labour attrition and less than 1% sickness rates? This will hold down the cost of recruitment and employment costs in general. Do they deliver continuous management improvement, can they deliver contract improvements of 2% per annum over the next 5 years? How can that be shared with the labour force?

Since March 2006 there has been little impact on salaries due to SIA licensing for contract security officers.  Yet - for individuals there has been improvement in their personal remuneration as they find that when interviewing for in-house vacancies (security or other) they are proudly displaying their security clearance from the SIA. 

With so much attention on the security officer, retention is improving, reducing annually from 35% to a more manageable 20%.    This is in the main due to excellent people that now populate the security HR profession.   Last year SSR® launched ‘The Inspiration in HR Award’, with Gemma Quirk of Wilson James as the inaugural winner.      What it demonstrated was the skill and innovation being developed across the security HR function, with a focus on retention, integration and talent development.

The authors of this report are Peter French and Mubeccel Ahmet of SSR® Personnel Services Ltd.

SSR® Personnel is the largest recruitment consultancy dedicated to the security, fire, health and safety sectors in Europe, operating in 20 countries. We have a global presence in North America, and partners in Asia and Eastern Europe. We are accredited ISO 9001:2000. For details of our opportunities and open vacancies visit our web site www.ssr-personnel.com

SSR® Personnel Services Ltd

Tel:  020 8626 3100

Fax:  020 8626 3101

Email: info@ssr-personnel.com

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