Access tip-top strategies, criteria, and factors to be considered for an almost effortless experience securing the best protection for your community.

If Life is priceless, human security is the greatest asset as it is crucial to protecting people from critical and pervasive threats and situations. But beyond protecting life, security can also be required for a host of other reasons: home protection, the safety of your valuables, communal organization, ensuring that rules and regulations are followed, etc.

Now, whether you’re the hirer or just conducting the engagement process on behalf of your residential community, being confident that you have chosen the right security guard company to engage with can be quite the task if you are new to the process of hiring the services of a security outfit. You may not know where to begin your research, what to ask during interviews with security guard companies, and how to be sure a company is a right pick.

How to Choose a Top-Grade Security Guard Company For Your Residential Community

Not to worry, though — we’ve got you covered.

Here is a fitting checklist of things to be on the lookout for while picking the right security guard company for your community:

1. Having a clear understanding of your community’s security challenges

It sounds basic, but it is the first essential step to making the process of choosing a security guard company a seamless one for you and your community.

You cannot select the right company if you do not fully understand your security needs and goals. It’s not enough to tell a company that your community has been facing a ton of vandalism and theft, there are reasons why these problems exist, and unless these reasons are uncovered, the issue remains hydra-like. You’ll keep chopping the head off, only for it to grow back.

And that is why a communal security audit is recommended before engaging a security guard company. With a communal security audit, you get a qualified and impartial third party to provide an independent review of the effectiveness of the existing security measures in your community.

This will help you realize your security weaknesses and provide you with recommendations to minimize security risks which you can communicate to the security guard company and see if they have the capacity to tackle.

2. Investigate the reputation and past performances of the security outfit you’re engaging

It will always be in your and the community’s best interests to thoroughly assess the professional reputation of a proposed security guard company. This step always helps in sieving out the fugazis or wrong choices in the preliminary stage. It’s also very easy to do.

You can conduct an online search about the company and read through reviews from former customers on the internet, ask for recommendations from family and friends that have engaged security guard companies in the past, or even ask the company for references you can contact to get more insight into the quality of the services you can expect.

Your predominant thought should be choosing a company with a longstanding reputation in your area. Choosing a new company may be risky because the company hasn’t demonstrated the quality of its services in your community yet. Still, it’s not discouraged, provided the company has a positive reputation among its former customers in other areas and also ticks the relevant boxes on the other tips suggested here.

3. Training and certification 

If there is something universally agreed on in the world of security, it has to be the fact that engaging a security guard company whose employees lack the required capabilities can be a bummer. Hiring a security guard company with uncertified employees cannot provide you with the peace of mind you seek in the high-standard protection of your residential community.

Apart from possessing the requisite certification, a good team in a security guard company must also be trained efficiently because working security is not an easy job. It requires vigilance, the ability to work under pressure, attention to detail, communication skills, and the capacity to remain professional at all times.

Find out if the company provides professional training initiatives and programs for professional advancement to its employees.

This is a critical criterion any security guard company must meet before being hired to protect you or your community; the last thing you want is a security guard that cannot act with integrity and act professionally in the event of an emergency.

4. Take note of your budget

Your budget is an essential factor when choosing a security guard company. You want to choose a company that matches your budget while meeting the level of security your community requires. After all, it’s both your money and security at stake.

The reason for this is a number of companies charge excessively high fees and guarantee high-level security, but the expense is never justified eventually, so it’s vital for you to always ensure that there is a balance between quality and cost while transacting with the company. For instance, if your community is a small one, it may make more sense budget-wise to employ a smaller company than a large-scale one.

5. Regulatory Compliance

It is also advisable to investigate whether the security guard company follows government regulations regarding how they conduct their business. For instance, while most organizations have different minimum working hours for their security guards, a shift of at least 8 hours is required.

6. Quality of Security Equipment and Systems

You wouldn’t bring a knife to a gunfight, and you wouldn’t get an ill-equipped security guard team to your community where you’re probably facing advanced security challenges.

In carrying out their job, security guards are expected to work with various equipment, including pistols, tasers, two-way radios, armored vests, and other defensive weapons. Security guards may also be required to operate and maintain security systems like CCTV cameras, scanners, sensors, security management software, mobile security apps, a guard tour system, etc.

It will be necessary to ensure that the quality of this equipment and security systems supplied by the company to its security guards for your protection is top-notch, mainly because of emergencies.

7. Insurance

A top-grade security guard company would have adequate liability insurance for its team and should be able to provide you with proof of such insurance during consultation. It is essential that you ascertain the existence of the insurance and its coverage of the company and your community’s situation, so you aren’t required to pay a massive expense if something goes wrong.

8. The Company’s primary focus

Some companies offer security guard services but not all focus strictly on that; they may have other types of services they offer. While this does not take away from their capacity to provide you and your community with first-class protection, it may be better to work with a company that has your safety and security as its primary focus, mainly since that is your focus as well. A company whose principal focus is providing security services can guarantee better customer service by responding to alerts at all times than a company with other engagements.

These factors can help guide you to making the best choice for the safety and security of your community. Now, while you could venture into applying these tips yourself, we can make things literally effortless for you at Security Pro.

We are in the business of researching, identifying, and connecting you with the best security professionals in the industry. So whenever you’re ready, book a free (yes, free) consultation with us or contact us to do just that.

We look forward to supplying you with the best options for your safety and security.