The importance of security post orders

There are many types of security guards, each with specific duties and responsibilities. To ensure successful and efficient service, security guard agencies establish the basic standards and tasks for security guard officers. These rules, orders, and operation procedures are defined in a “post orders” document. Although there are security companies that don’t provide post orders to a contract, security guard patrol has the practice to issue our customers with detailed and comprehensive post orders when contracting with clients.

What are security post orders?

Security post orders should be considered a primary and foundational part of security service. This document describes a security officer’s duties and operations. Post orders specify clients’ expectations towards security officers, accomplishments, and actions. In a sentence, they serve as a guide to security officers and the place their clients can clearly notify their prospects.

Post orders instruct all actions and functions of security guards, whether that is to supervise property and facilities, personal protection, deter criminals, or any other customers’ requirements.

For instance, if a client requires monitoring of the property, security post orders will contain the location officers should cover, property and premises, shift hours (meaning that the officers should not leave the location by any means in their shift), persons that officer should notify in cases of respective activity, before the end of the shift should make activity reports and inform the next shift officer about any unusual activity or special instructions.

Additional procedures

Additionally, security guards’ post orders contain important information regarding their activities, operating procedures, and security patrol equipment. For example, they can contain important information about fire alarms, smoke detectors, fire alarm control panel locations, the locations of fire fighting equipment (sprinkler systems and fire extinguishers), the location of buildings’ master keys, and other principal directions. Besides, post orders will include the instruction, actions, and proper behavior of the security officers regarding fire situations and the procedure that officers should follow. As most unarmed security guard services usually consider some kind of equipment, post orders should contain information about the requirement of pepper sprays, buttons, or stun guns.

In the case of access and parking lot security guard, post orders will contain information such as the way officers will ask for visitors’ registration, and data referring vehicles (license plate number, vehicle make, and color).

Campus security management usually requires orders to define and provide security officers with clear instructions regarding campus visitors and residents, instructing the guards about the rules and regulations that should be procedures. In this term, they might contain the way guards will obtain visitors’ information, the name of the resident they want to visit, to who should security officer report suspective activities, loud music, and other disturbance, how often should a security officer do patrols over the campus, and other generalities as well as details related to a maintaining order in the campus.

In cases where a client is in healthcare or a hospital institution, security guard post orders should contain healthcare policies and advance health care directives and specificities that apply to such types of institutions.

The importance of post orders

Every security operation requires a document with clearly outlined duties and instructions, site risks, and responsibilities of security employees on their worksite. Another importance regarding post orders is that security officers should be persistent in instructions of post orders and never jeopardize this contract. That is the reason why they are written document that represents the basis of customer satisfaction.

How to construct your post orders?

Writing good post-orders requires technical skill but also a good knowledge of your client’s goals regarding security service. This document is a manual of the security officer’s actual job to meet customers’ expectations. To successfully set post orders you can use pre-made templates that are convenient for some types of security services such as healthcare and hospital facilities, schools, universities, and government institutions.

The post orders are usually managed with security guard management software which offers easy, fast, and paper-free solutions in form of templates.

However, if you set post orders for personalized security service, you should consider the option of writing a customized document that refers to the particularity of clients’ needs. The manual should not be overwritten describing every possible circumstance and situation. A concise description of procedures using bullets is an efficient way to introduce security guards to business policies, except duties, and to cover important subjects.

Incorporate your clients` goals

It often happens that clients are not enough competent to describe their expectations and objectives. However, to provide customer satisfaction you must ask questions to unravel as well as possible their requirements of security. Asking numerous questions will help you evaluate and determine operating procedures that will support the work of security guards.

Many customers are not sure what to look for when hiring a security company, therefore eliciting potential clients about their needs and actual aims is crucial in providing proficient service and instructing officers on their work.

Constructing post orders

Physically, post orders can be broken into several sections and provided in different document sleeves.

The first section most often deals with emergency procedures, table of contents, and facility maps. Procedural documents and other associated content should follow the well-planned construction.

Elements of post orders

Besides the specific parts of particular security service types, there are some general elements every manual should contain:

• Operation statement
• Information about client
• Ethic code
• Information about staff with descriptions of their positions
• customers service policies
• Specific assignments
• Security access control
• identification card policies
• Emergency responses
• information about contacting law enforcement
• Reports (daily activity reports)

Additional information in post orders refers to all the specificities, personalized requirements, and other distinctions regarding a certain type of security which can be an armed patrol, access control devices, CCTV, other security guard equipment, and other relevant features.

Training on post orders

Security officers should be well-informed and well understand the provided post orders to achieve the objectives specified in the document. As a part of their training, make sure that supervisors clearly understand every aspect of post orders regarding both procedures and maps. The part of the training should also consider the construction of daily activity reports, so the provided reports are comprehensive and informative.

Update post orders

Post orders should be considered a live document that evolves and develops as the site changing. If the site’s procedures require any changing and adjustments, make sure to follow and update orders as soon as possible. For this purpose, it’s convenient to have security guard management software with a post-order option which can make this job easier and faster.

Final thoughts

Formulating clear, comprehensive, and relevant post orders is considered as standard procedure in our security company. Contact us if you want to be sure that your security is covered from very basic document manuals to the most challenging real situations.