While the world is anxiously waiting to get back to business as quickly as possible, it may be easier said than done. Recent events have certainly highlighted the importance of security, and in fact many businesses—like supermarkets, drugstores, and hospitals—are relying on security to keep them in business. But in all likelihood, it will not be “business as usual” for the foreseeable future. 

As we all play the waiting game, this time might also be an opportunity for security business owners and security executives to consider how to deliver services in the post-pandemic world. If the shuttering of retail shops, bars, and restaurants has sidelined your team, it might be time to explore what other opportunities are available to you and your team so that you could provide much-needed assistance in many sectors desperate for help.  

 

Some opportunities worth exploring include: 

Care Homes: With care homes across the country locked down, and staff working overtime at hospitals, governments are calling for more support to assist overworked agency staff in care home settings. One of the problems that was identified during the past few months is that temporary workers who rotate among care homes present serious health issues to our elderly within care homes. Security companies with staff who possess first-aid skills or medical training might consider offering dedicated assistance to the most vulnerable in our society. 

Alternate Care Centers: Alternate care centers that were set up in stadiums and exhibitions centers to treat patients present unique security challenges because they weren’t designed for security. Security companies whose guards have large-scale event experience might prove extremely valuable in these new environments because of their familiarity and experience working in large sporting and entertainment venues. 

Drive-Through Test Centers: Local governments are currently setting up dozens of regional test sites to offer tests to essential workers. Consider offering your security guard services to make sure these testing facilities run as smoothly as possible so essential workers in key industries—which now includes teachers, bankers, supermarket workers, police officers, delivery workers and the list grows daily—can get easily and safely tested if they need to.

Main Streets and Shopping Centers: While break-and-enter and home burglaries type crimes have decreased, school closures, shuttered main streets and retail parks, have increased the need for onsite patrols in these areas. With work-from-home mandates and travel restrictions still in place in many states, many key-holding business owners or employees are now unable to respond to triggered alarms, or return to the site to open the door for a security company. Security companies who can provide key holding services can provide peace of mind to shuttered businesses by offloading that responsibility from owners.

Community Support Representatives: Community support representatives are now required at a number of facilities, including hospitals where the roles are not representative of typical guarding duties, but rather to provide customer service, access control, and wayfinding to patients and staff. These types of positions offer security guards skills and experience in patient care, violence prevention and mitigation, and de-escalation tactics.

Cannabis Stores (for our Canadian clients): Security for cannabis retailers comes in many forms, including surveillance, manned guards inside and outside dispensaries, armoured trucks, front-of-store security for ID verification, and security patrols at marajuana growing facilities.  

Crowd Control: In what can only be described as one of the saddest new guard opportunities, extra security is now required to assist in monitoring crowds and explaining social distancing rules to mourners at funerals. 

As we wait for the world to slowly start to return to the “new normal,” it’s a good time to take time to explore the opportunities around you. To quote Albert Einstein, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”