The Personal Protection industry is made up of a lot of characters. There are those with elite military backgrounds, those who come from various law-enforcement careers, those who rose through the private security industry, those who landed in the market through connections or by being in the right place at the right time, and those who somehow ended up in the space.
Within all those cohorts, there are those who utilise their transferrable skills from prior careers and life experiences to become outstanding contributors to the industry, and there are those who like to live vicariously through their clients. There are also those who seek to create, develop and enhance the areas of the industry they operate in and those who like to ‘gate-keep’ and limit the opportunities of others to support their own positions.
I have a prior career in law enforcement but equally important, I spent time on the close protection circuit prior to establishing my business to learn the nuances of the sector. Now, eight years into business, the list of things I didn’t know I didn’t know when I started (and probably don’t know that I don’t know now) is huge. What I experienced on the circuit and from my counterparts as I started my personal protection journey, was mostly why it wouldn’t work, detrimental advice and a refusal to mentor and share learnings.
I am 40 years old at the time of writing this, and managing business in multiple countries and in some very unique environments. My business partner is also 40 years old. Our Executive Management Team are 55, 53, 49, 47, 46, and 37, and our Team range from 20 to 65 years of age. Why am I sharing all this?
The Industry Cross-Section
I assume that if you took a cross-section of the industry, you’d find something very similar across most organisations. The point I’m illustrating in this article is the need to empower the next generation of leaders rather than gate-keeping our positions and discouraging the younger people of our industry, we need to support their rise. I’m sure we’ve all heard the dinosaurs of the industry say things like, “I’ve been in this industry longer than you’ve been alive’.
I’m a firm believer that time served in the industry is not an indicator of current capability. Some people are quicker learners than others, everyone’s experience within the industry will be different regardless of the time spent operating in it. If I can teach someone in two years what took me 10 to learn, then that’s a net win for everyone.
From a business continuity perspective, my most senior members will likely be retiring in the next five to 10 years. My current management team likely be in 10 to 15 years. And at what age do I want to retire, or at least scale back?
The Next Generation
From an industry perspective, the younger among us come with a different set of skills and some fresh mindsets. They have been educated differently, they are generally more tech-savvy, and they communicate differently. And guess what? So too do the next wave of clients. Rather than pointing out their differences, inexperience, and perceived deficiencies, we should be projecting our need for the next wave of operators and industry leaders and help in the transition phase.
At Empire Protection, one of the things I’m most proud of is our Young Leaders Program. This is a program that was instigated, and is led by our Australian National Manager John Wallin, and has seen immediate short- and long-term returns on investment. Our Young Leaders currently range in age from 24 to 34 and come from similar backgrounds to most of those in the private security industry. This program commences at recruitment, with us headhunting candidates that demonstrate the right character, aptitude and attitude. We then look at what skills they bring to the team, remembering that the operational hard skills are not the only requirements in today’s (and the future) operating space and that they can also be taught quite quickly to the right people, in the right environment.
The Young Leader is then brought into a number of areas of the business, not just sent out to work. We have created a program that sees them strategically exposed to all facets of the business from security operations to risk management, task planning and client engagement, business development, team leadership, technical elements such as TSCM and OSINT, consulting and business planning, finance, compliance and senior leadership. What’s more, we select tasks to assign that are safe for them, the business and the client, and ensure that they are not set up to fail. We bring them to executive management meetings, engage with them and expose them to what happens behind the curtain.
They are always supported and closely mentored, making it a positive experience for everyone. And by the way, this is not an internship with associated low pay and poor conditions – this is a program that enhances their regular work. We firmly believe that the time we put into our Young Leaders now, enhances the capability of the company’s operations, provides gainful and satisfying career pathways, continues to place us as an employer of choice, and creates a diverse and enthusiastic culture that runs across the business.
We are creating depth in the short term and redundancy and continuity in the long term. That is why we are also creating a space for people who are keen to improve the industry as a whole. Whilst the return on investment may take time, it’s worth every minute and every penny.
Providing Support to the Next Generation
Since the program has been formalised at Empire Protection, we have also worked hard to ensure that we carry that essence on through our interactions with all our stakeholders. Whether it’s providing support, advice, and guidance to young event security guards while we work together, sharing information on podcasts, forums and groups, taking the time to speak openly with people at conferences and over social media etc. or just simply being accessible to people with questions and who want guidance, it all helps. Our opportunity to change industry culture for the better has become a real passion project, and the industry can use as many positive industry advocates as it can get.
I strongly encourage all industry leaders to actively work to improve the industry and pathways for those entering it now and in the future. It’s in all our interests. For anyone wishing to replicate something of this nature, we’d be happy to share in more detail how we have implemented it, so feel free to reach out to us.