A Duty to Protect
As a company – you have many responsibilities. Budgets to crunch, deadlines to meet, sales figures, meetings, agendas, bottoms lines. All of the things that ensure a company is run smoothly, successfully, and responsibly.
You take steps and implement guidelines to ensure targets are met. Goals are passed and even exceeded. You hire and train your staff to work as part of your well oiled machine. Everyone works together. Whatever it takes, how ever long it takes, those pay cheques are coming home every two weeks.
So what else are you missing to ensure those pay cheques keep coming?
Health and safety. And not just the pamphlets people don’t read, the posters hung up by the employee lunch room. Real safety. Real safety past the steel toed boots, hard hats and safety harnesses.
Probably for a good number of businesses, health and safety doesn’t really surpass those previously mentioned basics. However, for some businesses, having on site security is a must have and for any number of reasons.
On site security can be in place to prevent visitors from entering restricted areas. They can be there to protect property – physical or intellectual. In places where there are a lot of valuables around, security is an obvious choice in a business plan.
Another situation that may cause need for security would be threats against a property, a business, or an individual. Regardless of who or where the threat has come from or is directed, having a plan and taking action on it is integral for a company to continue on its way to success.
Should a threat be ignored, and no action taken, then what happens? The person, place, or business could come under fire – quite literally – which will definitely impede a companies upward projection.
Recently in Texas, a business had just laid off their security provider. They were aware of threats of workplace violence yet had not taken appropriate action to ensure the safety of their property and the people they employed.
With this lapse in judgement and action, an employee entered the building and shot a coworker – who survived, and her manager – who was unfortunately killed, before the Police entered and shot and killed her.
Given the severity of the case with the loss of life, and the previous knowledge of threats against the workplace, the family of the killed manager has opened a lawsuit against the company. They state the duty to protect and keep the property and its employees safe was not met.
Security at the workplace does not start or end with the theft of office supplies. Keeping employees safe is just as important as your bottom line. Without a team to hold it all together, there is no business.
People are valuable – as much as they can be replaced, a life lost is a life lost. Skimping on security to meet budgets and bottom lines is not a measure that should be taken by any company. While ensuring that you are getting the most from your security budget is important, reducing or even foregoing is a risk that any company should seriously reconsider. At the end of the day, figuring out the value of a life shouldn’t be a number that is reflected in the ledgers.
Guest Blogger Rayna Davies
Rayna Davies is a graduate and practitioner of Business Management. She has developed an expertise in blogging, covering subjects like travel, world events and security. Having grown up with a father who has developed an expertise in Physical Security and Executive Protection in the RCMP and two major corporations, she has personally observed and 
experienced many security details. These experiences have included personally meeting HM Queen Elizabeth, Prime Minister Jean Chretien and many celebrities. She presently assists Sentinel Security in Executive Protection workshops and guest blogging and also assists Gloprosec Preventative Services in Intelligence gathering and Business Administration. Her passions include World travel, having visited every continent.
