Career and Succession Management for Security Services
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
What this looks like in security services
The parts of career and succession management that are specific to this sector, rather than general.
Progression From Post to Supervision
Careers for a workforce usually treated as interchangeable.
What this coversHide
Progression From Post to Supervision
Careers for a workforce usually treated as interchangeable.
What this coversHideSecurity staff are frequently managed as deployable units rather than as individuals with futures, which is a substantial part of why attrition in the sector is what it is.
- Security guard
- Senior guard or head guard
- Supervisor
- Site in-charge
- Operations or contract manager
- Progression criteria stated and applied consistently
- Supervisor capability built before deployment to the role
- Specialist routes - control room, electronic surveillance, investigation
- Training and certification support tied to the next step
- Site in-charge and operations succession mapped
- Recognition of long service as a route, not just a badge
Control room and electronic surveillance roles are the most effective retention routes available, because they offer a materially different working life to guards who have served well at post.
The general method — what career and succession management covers, the questions it answers and what an engagement produces — is the same whatever the sector, and is set out on the succession and leadership development page. What is above is the part that differs for security services.
Other HR topics for security services
Where to start
Most engagements begin with a review of how this runs in your business today, then a written process and the sequence to implement it.
See all HR topics for security services, or another industry.