5 ways to reduce employee turnover in the security industry

As a boss, you may know that recruiting is a costly exercise, and the key to a successful company is the retention of excellent staff. 

For security staff, it’s typical to pay agencies around 20%, if not more, of an employee’s annual salary as a fee. So, regardless of whether you choose to hire staff permanently or hire on a temporary to permanent basis, you could still end up paying up to £4,000 per employee. And if and when they leave, you get to go through the hassle of hiring again — and you get to pay again.  

And did you know that the security industry has a staggering 300% turnover rate in some companies? That means if you had a security staff of 10, 30 people would leave in the space of a year. Supplying security staff is a never-ending ringing of the till for employment agencies.  

You can take other routes, of course, but for the adverts, referencing, candidate selection, and interviewing, remember, if you are not paying an agency, you are paying your own staff or yourself to do the work. 

So to stop the never-ending revolving door of staff coming and going, you need to consider a retention strategy that aligns with your company ethos that makes staff want to join your company and stay.  

So, how can you retain great security staff?

It’s fair to say that entry-level security work is not the best-paid job. However, let’s look at a similar role. New police recruits in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have a starting salary in 2022 of £21,402 (or the equivalent in euros for NI). This equates to around £11.63 an hour. The difference, however, is that police officers can double this in seven years by staying as a PC but hitting targets. And they can earn far more by rising through the ranks. 

The police also offer several schemes that allow police officers to benefit from discounts and a generous pension. The police do not have any significant issues regarding staff retention, so what are the reasons for such poor retention in the security industry? 

They include:

• Poor salary
• Lack of recognition
• Lack of career progression
• Poor recruiting
• Lack of training
• Little to no benefits

All these issues can be tackled and are the key to retaining security staff, and you don’t have to be a huge company to start offering your employees great benefits. 

So, what can you offer your security staff for them to stay?

Poor salary

The starting point is an excellent basic salary. The minimum wage is currently £9.50, and security jobs are typically offered from the minimum wage up to around £13.50. When offering a salary, the best thing to do is check job sites to see how much your competitors offer. If you offer less, the best candidates will go elsewhere, so it’s up to you who you want to employ. And bear in mind, if your wage is lower than other local businesses, many people will work for you as a stopgap until an opening in a better-paid company comes up. 

You also need to consider what you are asking of your employees, which is to put themselves in harm’s way on a daily basis. Security staff are now asked to train for longer and become more proficient in first aid and potential terrorist attacks, so paying your security staff as much as possible is a major factor in the retention of staff in a role such as this. 

You should implement a process where staff are encouraged to stay when they have more experience. They may become trainers or team leaders, and you should increase their wages accordingly as they improve their value to your company.  

Offering training is vital to retain and improve the performance of the best staff

Lack of training and Career progression

Security staff are often trained on the job by more experienced staff. It’s a natural progression, so when recruiting new staff, you should look for friendly and helpful people with initiative that can be trainers in the future. As a company, you can offer to pay for employees to attend top-up training for the SIA licence needed by security staff and pay for the course cost. 

Security staff also want to know that there is the option to go further just like anyone else. It will be a great boost for your company if you can train staff to take on more dynamic areas of security planning if they are willing and able. 

Get Licensed offers additional training courses to boost your security staff’s effectiveness and knowledge when dealing with day-to-day situations. They include:

• Fire Marshall  
• Introduction to Risk Assessment 
• ADHD Awareness
• Mental Health Awareness
• Workplace Health and Safety

All the courses are taken through e-learning and start from as little as £25.

Lack of recognition

While you can’t do much about how society recognises a security guard, you can treat your security staff with inclusive respect. It can be typical to treat your company’s cleaners and security staff as almost a separate entity. You can recognise security staff as an essential part of your team by treating them with friendly respect in the workplace just as you would any other employee. Providing uniforms for free is a small step so that security staff look and feel able to do their jobs well. You should also include them in company schemes that are accessible to the rest of your staff. 

The cycle-to-work scheme is a great benefit to offer staff

Little to no benefits

If you haven’t looked into what you can offer your staff recently, you should look again. Even if you are a smaller company with no gym or the ability to have a gym, you can still speak to local gyms about schemes you can pay for that will give your staff low or no-cost access to a gym membership. 

There are other schemes you can get involved with that will appeal to many employees. The cycle-to-work scheme is an excellent way for employees to get a bike and equipment that they pay for over a year without being taxed on that amount. This cycle-to-work scheme saves on pollution and rush hour congestion, boosts fitness, and saves money on transport. It can also be very useful for security staff who work hours when there is little public transport available. 

Supermarkets that employ security staff are in the position to offer their security staff a discount card that can help them save thousands a year on things from groceries to electronics, holidays and insurance. However, as a smaller company, you can also offer your employees discounts by speaking to an employee benefits specialist such as Hapi. Through a benefits package, employees can save money on discounted products and choose to save with pension schemes. The package can be tailored to the individual and is proven to improve employee engagement and performance as well as retention.  

And, if you are a nightclub that offers bar staff a free drink at the end of the night, make sure that your door personnel also get the same thank you after a long night. 

Recruiting staff made easy with Get Licensed

Poor recruiting

If you are saving money and not using an agency, you could suffer from recruiting the wrong staff in the first place. You should make sure you detail the job, duties, benefits, and wage clearly. If you use other sites such as monster or cv library, you could struggle as anyone can register with those sites. At Get Licensed, you can hire security workers with confidence. You can post ten jobs for free and talk to a talent specialist. Every candidate has been SIA checked and is fully licensed, and there is access to 10,000 job seekers every week. We recruit for top employers, including the NHS, G4S and Serco. And we give you all the details you need about candidates, including criminal and financial screening, experience, and even video introductions, so you can be assured of the right fit for your company. 

If you cover all these bases and define a retention strategy for your company, you will save thousands on recruiting and have happier staff that perform better. If you would like some more information about hiring staff on the Get Licensed platform, why not talk to a talent specialist today?