How security teams can benefit from standardising operational processes

While reporting itself has been an established process, how security operators choose to implement their reporting has changed. Some must rely on hard-copy finalised reports while others maintain a hybrid of online data collection with the ability to print hard copies. Regardless of how security teams manage reporting, not having data or analytics to justify operational decisions opens the door to missed opportunities and potentially costly litigation.

KPIs (key performance indicators) tied to reporting can often be challenging; how can supervisors know what to measure? How can security operators ensure their guards are gathering the right information at the right time? This is where digital reporting, tied to real-time data collection, can provide operational visibility into everyday guard activity, incidents and more.

When data is gathered and reported in real-time, supervisors take action right when reporting occurs. This allows for a quick resolution to critical incidents or emergencies and can act as the basis for optimising proactive responses.

Proactive operational management is a benefit of real-time reporting. Accurately collecting and analysing incident reporting data will help mitigating risk and provide an organised view of security team operations.

Organising your reporting data: Using templated reports

Organised data starts with creating and using templated reports. Report templating is a fool-proof way to ensure that what’s collected matches up to what’s being collected.

Whether internal security teams partner with security guarding providers, manage their own in-house guards, or have a mix of both, supervisors can use reporting templates to align all involved parties for better consistency in operations.

Processes such as evidentiary collection, guard response, report accountability and documenting follow-up proceduresmust ensure that security companies gain the most from their data collection.

With templated reports, security operators can benchmark property incident points for critical analysis and better risk mitigation. Benchmarking can be used to compare which areas have more violations, which are performing well and which may need further action.

Templated reporting helps supervisors and security operators configure their reports to reduce the risk of potential errors or miscommunication. Here’s how:

Digitally track critical incident and activity reports

In moving away from paper reporting, security companies have made it possible to attach supportive evidence directly to a reportwith digital reporting. This means guards on the front-line can take photos, videos, or comments and can attach them for supervisor review.

With digital reports, any incidents or daily activities reported can be logged and visualised on a real-time dashboard. Supervisors can visualise site health and incident activities for review to determine which sites need immediate attention from stakeholders.

Establish a fool-proof way to create report credibility

Security operators rely on their security team to produce credible reports strong enough to be used during litigation, if needed. Configurable reporting has made it even easier to ensure guards on the front-line can document required information, such as a signature, time-stamped entries or GPS guard location, needed to establish credibility.

Create response fields for simple guard reporting

Digital reports make guard reporting simple and error-free. Supervisors have the option to create required fields with pre-written responses that give front-line guards the option to select the appropriate choice when filling out a report. Selected responses make it simple for supervisors to tailor each report so that it captures exactly what stakeholders need to know.

Viewing templated digital reporting data in real-time

Real-time data and analytics are crucial indicators to the health of one’s holistic security plan for overall business continuity. Real-time data and analytics have not only provided immediate insights onto guard activity and incident status but have aided in centralising security initiatives in the new normal.

Fully customisable real-time dashboards provide supervisors with a unified view of all security activities throughout the property with true, actionable insights. This includes reporting data gathered by guards on the front-line. Indicators such as outstanding reports, reporting statuses, incident notifications and more can help provide critical benchmark metrics for stronger risk mitigation.

Establishing KPIs for efficient reporting insights

When thinking about establishing KPIs, security teams often struggle to find accurate metrics to measure reporting successes. In using templatised reports, these efforts can be adapted if needed to comply with any regulations while also consistent enough for guards to use multiple times and for different reporting needs.

There are a few items security operators can measure with insights obtained from templatised reporting.

Time saved in supervisor reporting processes

When compared to solely relying on paper-based reporting methods, upgrading to digital reporting allows for supervisors to take advantage of security workforce management software made to handle the upkeep and management of the reporting process. By connecting the data that guards collect on the front-lines to a real-time dashboard, supervisors can save time manually processing reports and notifying stakeholders.

Number of incident reports at a certain time period

Digital reporting can easily track the number of reports filed during a certain period or historical range. These are critical reporting statistics that can help security operators plan for risk management and assessments while also working to reduce property incidents.

With historical views of reports, supervisors can track and log the percentage of outstanding reports while comparing to previous reporting ranges. This can help provide security operators with a holistic view of their operations by trends and other identified patterns.

Security teams can save time and bring back value to their reporting processes

Security teams can truly benefit from being proactive in their operations. One way to do so is to bring back value to the reporting process. With tools gained from report templating and real-time dashboards for viewing historical reporting data, supervisors can take action and notify stakeholders immediately, saving time and gaining peace of mind.

To learn more about Trackforce Valiant’s fully configurable security reporting solution, visit Trackforce.com.

FREE guide for security firms: Adapting your security operations during challenging times

What are the biggest concerns facing security professionals right now? Download our latest ebook to discover how our solutions can help you.

By Christina Ortega, Trackforce Valiant