I have dealt with many businesses and organizations, and every time they are contracting security firms, they only think about protecting physical assets and preventing theft. But back in their minds, there’s something they need and rarely talk about: liability protection. Generally speaking, the reason the clients contract security firms is that they don’t want to carry liability in case something happens.
These things can range from disputes with vendors and customers, workplace injuries and deaths, to slip-and-fall claims. These are enough incidents to land the entire organization in expensive lawsuits if they are not documented well, or if the organization seems to neglect compliance and safety. And when these liability risks are transferred to your security firm, you’ll have to come up with ways to mitigate them. On average, theft alone costs businesses and organizations $50 billion per year.
Then there’s the issue of unauthorized visitors. Statistics show that 74% of workplaces have to deal with unauthorized visitors. These are just some of the things the client expects the contracted security firm to solve, and if something happens, the client will probably blame you. That’s where automation comes in. Instead of relying on your security team’s reporting, analysis, and human judgment, automation makes it possible to have reliable reports and evidence that can stand the test of courts, and shift liability from you.
Other than that, automation makes it possible to track your security guards’ performance, monitor situations in real time, improve response time, and deter crimes. Let me walk you through how automation kills liability risks, and show you how to do it.
Visual evidence for claims and disputes
This is one of the biggest advantages of automation. When there are disputes and claims from your client or third parties, it’s upon your security firm to debunk them by proving otherwise. Of course, you’ll need hard evidence, as mere words and human-written reports are also unverifiable claims. With automation, you can equip your security guards with mobile apps for capturing evidence of incidents.
For example, when the security guards see something suspicious, they take photos and videos, log the necessary details, and share the info with the supervisor. Usually, these photos and videos are time-stamped and have metadata showing location. The good news is that time-stamped photos and videos are acceptable evidence in court and will help clear your name. You only need to make sure the footage clearly shows the subject or incident in question.
For instance, if you have a surveillance camera in your workplace, and a customer alleges they tripped, fell, and got injured in your premises, videos from the cameras can prove it’s not true. Or if a break-in happens and the client hypes the extent of damages, your security guards can capture photos and videos of the state of the damages, and the evidence can be accepted in court. This helps kill liability risks.
Better incident reporting
Normally, you want your incident reports to match the hard evidence the guard captured using the mobile app. But for the years I have served as an operations leader in security firms, I have seen guards sit down to write incident reports, and they simply don’t know where to start. They aren’t sure which information to include or not.
The biggest issue with such confusion is that the guards end up writing subjective reports based on what they deem necessary, and omit what they think isn’t necessary. Considering that the incident report is recognized as a formal court document, this is risky, as you can’t know how the case will spiral in the future.
A good example is a Miami hotel that wrote a 3-sentence incident report claiming a spill when a Paralympian slipped and fell after the floor was mopped. The defendant then took advantage of CCTV footage, and the hotel ended up settling a compensation of $4.75 million in place of going the court route. But what if the incident report was detailed and had contrary hard evidence? The outcome might have been different. Here are some of the common issues with manual incident reports.
- Missing details: Missing incident details can make your report unusable. For example, imagine having an incident report where there are no timestamps, exact locations, or descriptions of the vehicles involved. Everything becomes guesswork.
- Excess details: Although it’s not bad to include everything that happened, some guards write excessively long reports. For example, imagine reading a 9-page report about spilled trash. The report will basically kill both the guard’s and the supervisor’s time.
- Format inconsistencies: If there’s no standardized format for writing the reports, some guards might hand-write on papers, while others may choose to write in their phone’s sticky notes. Some might write the location and time at the bottom of the report, while others might write it as headers. Bringing together all the information from these different formats is confusing and takes time.
- Bad handwriting: This is as straightforward as it sounds. Some guards’ handwriting is not so good, and the supervisor ends up guessing some words. This increases legal exposure, especially if the guard claims before the court that that’s not what they initially wrote.
- Subjective language: As I mentioned, when guards don’t know what to include or omit, they end up including what they “think” is relevant. This is subjective, as the omitted details might be more necessary. Also, guards might end up using subjective vague language like “he looked suspicious”, which doesn’t hold up well in the corridors of justice.
How automation helps
Here’s how automation helps solve the above incident reporting problems and reduce your liability risks:
- Centralized reporting: When guards prepare and submit the incident reports, they all go into one centralized system. This makes it easy to pull previous reports and correlate. For example, if a new homeowner in an association claims negligence of a broken gate, you can easily pull previous reports and prove the gate had been repaired, and the situation in hand is fresh.
- Standardized template: When guards use a standard format and template to prepare the reports, everything becomes consistent, and you won’t have issues with missing details or irrelevant information. For example, if the mobile app is AI-powered, it can automatically prompt to capture every relevant detail. Alternatively, the mobile app can have a template form with predefined fields like date, time, location, and type of incident – and the form automatically mandates all these relevant fields be filled before submission. That way, the guard must input all key details.
- No handwriting issues: Of course, when guards use mobile apps to capture reports, you save yourself from illegible handwriting.
- Report goes with evidence: Since the same mobile app captures the photos and videos, the incident report goes with its corresponding hard evidence.
Improve emergency response
Although security guards are trained to respond to emergency situations quickly, it doesn’t mean they can handle the situation by themselves. For example, if your firm offers unarmed security patrols, and the guards respond to a burglary situation and find the robbers are armed, they can’t handle them themselves. They’ll need police backup. Or in case of a natural disaster, the few guards present might not be able to conduct meaningful rescues.
If you’re still relying on traditional communication channels like radio calls, which are limited by weather, range, and building, guards won’t be able to communicate with the supervisor and police. But with automated patrol apps, supervisors can monitor the situation in real time. That way, they can easily make informed decisions such as deploying more security guards or contacting the police. This saves the firm from negligence liabilities as the right steps were undertaken immediately.
Monitor guard behavior
Sometimes liabilities arise from the actions of your own security team. For example, when you assign patrol routes as a security supervisor, how can you confirm the guards actually conducted the patrols or followed the right route? How do you know they stayed in the designated spots, or they decided to spend time in comfortable places like areas with better lighting?
For example, if you assign a guard the role of securing a community pool under construction, the guard fails to turn up, or turns up but spends time in a different spot, and if construction materials get stolen, you’re liable. But the failure isn’t you as the supervisor, but your inability to ensure the team does what is expected. However, with a patrol guard security system, you can monitor the movement of your guards in real time and know whether the guard was in the right place at the right time. The system achieves this in three ways:
- GPS tracking: With this option, the designated checkpoints tick off automatically as the guards move around those spots with their phones. With this option, you can even set up a radius of patrols, and the app will automatically send notifications when the guards move outside the patrol area.
- NFC: You place NFC tags in pre-determined checkpoints. When the guard reaches the checkpoint, they scan the tag. The advantage of NFC tags is that they don’t need power to operate, can withstand harsh weather, and the guard must be a few inches from the tag. That means there’s no way they can scan without physical presence.
- QR-code: Although technologically NFC tags and QR-codes are different, they operate the same way. The guard must be in close proximity to scan.
Since the guards know you’re monitoring them in real-time, they become more accountable and reduce the chances of incidents. Also, because the checkpoint verification is tied to the centralized security system, in case something happens, you’ll have logs confirming that your security guards were present and did their best to handle the situation.
Meet insurance coverage requirements
Even with all these measures in place, incidents can still happen. As a security firm, you probably have insurance coverage that can help you offset possible liability claims. But just like in any other insurance policy, you’ll need to prove to your insurance company that you did everything responsibly, and the incident was out of your control. You must also prove that the incident falls exactly under the coverage policy.
For example, let’s say your security firm deals with unarmed guards. Then you take insurance coverage to cover liability in case of armed robbery. If your company is contracted to protect organization assets and there’s an armed burglary and the assets are vandalized, your insurance company will want proof that the robbers were armed, and so you qualify for compensation. If you can’t prove this, the insurance company might assume it’s your failure, and the liability lies with you. On the other hand, if you have surveillance cameras covering the incident as it unfolds, then you’ll have sealed all gaps in your protection.
Final thoughts
I have worked as an operations leader for security guards, as well as a security supervisor. I understand the pain in both camps. For security guards, the main issues are preparing incident reports manually and communicating incidents with their supervisors in real-time or early enough. For supervisors, they have to collect and compile the different report formats from different guards into structured reports. The result? Sometimes reports lack key details, increasing your legal exposure. And sometimes, as a supervisor, you simply don’t have info on what’s happening, so you end up not allocating more guards or resources to deal with incidents. The result? Claims of negligence. But with automation, the supervisor can monitor guards and situations in real time, and act accordingly to avoid liability. Also, reports are submitted in a standardized format, and you’ll never end up with half-baked reports that can increase your legal exposure.
