Benefits of a government-funded management apprenticeship for security officers

If you are a full-time security officer looking to develop your career, it might be worth looking at one of the government-funded apprenticeships available.

A competitive edge with a government-funded apprenticeship

The frontline security market is highly competitive for both individuals and security businesses. If the business you work for wants to be more competitive, they might see the benefit that a management qualification could provide.

This could be especially true when bidding for new business or looking to grow business with existing clients.

Some larger businesses are obligated to contribute to the Government’s Apprentice Levy (smaller businesses are not). I was able to access 95% of the funding for a Level 7 Management Apprenticeship on the back of my employer being prepared to cover off the other 5%.

In my City Security magazine article ‘Four ways a management apprenticeship can bring value to your role in security’ I highlighted the benefits from the learning from four of my course modules: Leadership, Project Management, Market Led Strategy, and Measuring Business Value (management accounting). All of these have provided me with better insight into how to win new security business.

In this follow-up article, I’ll outline the key learning from three further modules.

Organisational culture and innovation

The module on organisational culture helped me to recognise different categories of organisation I had worked with and for, in the past. Knowing you are right is one thing,but understanding that there is management science to back up your opinion places you in a much stronger position.

Another module helped me understand the science behind innovation. Some organisations have people who have spent their entire careers in departments responsible for innovation. Smaller companies may not have an innovation department but can prosper by promoting a culture of innovation. At a pre-Covid conference in London, security thought leaders Christian West from the US and Jacquie Davis from Optimal Risk both spoke about the need for frontline security service providers to think outside the box to demonstrate value add.

Helping a young relative queue for the latest must-have trainers, I found myself outside a pop-up store in Shoreditch. The responsible brand had provided plenty of security staff and the team had the store locked down. The security team had done such a good job that one of the security officers was actually doing customer service inside the shop, to reduce queue time and increase cashflow.

Not too far away from Shoreditch, I’m aware of another corporate security team who operate a safe space in their atrium after work.  Any employee who is stuck for a taxi or worried about a stalker after hours, can come back to the office after work and security helps them find safe travel home.

Strategic commercial management

The module on strategic commercial management helped my cohort understand how large clients seek contract solutions from the market. Part of this was an exercise where we were split up into four syndicates trying to compete for a piece of business with a client represented by faculty staff. We had to interpret their hot-buttons and the faculty in turn awarded points to each syndicate.

Most readers will know that price is commonly seen as the defining factor. The security of the 2012 Olympics in London is a prime example, where both buyer and seller were caught out. But price is not the universal discriminator, and some clients may pay more attention to the vetted status of the contractor’s staff, or that they can routinely provide the same staff on-site, as opposed to a warm body with a blue SIA badge. Other clients may want to understand your company’s quality accreditation, environmental policies, corporate social responsibility, or sustainability model.

Sustainable business

This brings me on to the sustainable business module on my course.  Sustainable businesses are ones that are planning how they are going to survive in a world that is increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA). In the Forbes magazine article ‘The eight biggest business trends 2022’, number one was ‘Sustainable, resilient operations’, which stated ‘Every organisation must seek to eliminate or reduce the environment costs of doing business’. To survive, and help their clients survive, frontline security practice needs to be able to anticipate and cope with these changes. For instance:  how much time do some security businesses spend trying to find people to fill shift rosters, when they are paying a sub-optimal rate?

A call to action to employers of frontline officers

What happens if we train our people and they leave? Well think about this: what happens if we don’t train our people and they stay? As Richard Branson says: “Let’s train our people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to”.

Mark Chapple

Consultant