How Security Operations Improve Liability Defense

Security operations depend on analytics and accurate documentation.

The reason?

To help protect their property from liability.

The best operations are aware of recurring incidents, predict and mitigate potential hazards that could occur, and have full documentation and analysis of all events.

Identifying hotspots where incidents often arise is a critical factor in successfully preventing future occurrences down the road.

It’s also the best way to proactively arm your team with the resources they need to respond efficiently, effectively, and expeditiously.

Consider this scenario.

Both internal and external patrol teams are tasked with ensuring the safety of all your property’s customers.

Your property is a multi-story building with many business suites.

During regular business hours, a man who works for one of the businesses is assaulted near an elevator.

After looking at the security footage, you identify the suspect as someone associated with a similar incident not too long ago.

Ask yourself...

• Could you prove your guards made all perimeter checks during that timeframe?
• Do you know how quickly your team responded to this incident? How about the previous incident?
• Would you be able to protect your property or yourself in a legal battle?

Keep reading, because today we’ll show you how professional operations ensure they and their property are better protected against liability.

Security Operations Rely on Analytics

It’s time to ensure you can protect all stakeholders in this situation.

But what’s truly the best solution for this?

Analytics. 

Analytics is the key factor to achieve success and Proactive Operations.

Analytics gives you the ability to clearly understand your operation to prevent a legal case from financially affecting you and your property.

Here’s how:

1. Analyzing Response Times Gives You an Understanding of Your Weaknesses 

Use them to improve your processes and strengthen your protocols.

It helps you stay ahead of the potential hazards, forecast them, and ensure you’re able to prevent incidents or mitigate them quickly while they’re occurring.

The goal is to measure and then measure again.

2. Response Times Can Influence Other Aspects of Your Operation 

Long response times are dangerous for your defense.

Short response times stem from efficient processes resulting in your property's safety and the people it protects.

It’ll undoubtedly strengthen your argument in a liability case.

3. Faster Response Minimizes the Impact of Incidents

Take our example of the man assaulted near the elevator.

Time is always of the essence in these situations.

Incidents require fast response and must be handled expertly. 

Quick response will save you lots of money, affecting your property – and your reputation.

Being proactive and preventing incidents like this from occurring is what we would refer to as job security.

With proper analysis, you can locate the impediments in your security operation.

You can also figure out other problems unrelated to our example.

Accurate Documentation + Analytics Leads to Improved Liability Defense

For now, let’s go back to our example and expand upon it.

After extensive digging into this incident, you have a revelation.

Many of your property’s customers are being attacked near the staircase for a couple of other incidents on record.

It seems like it could take you a while to dissect and solve this problem.

Well, that’s certainly true if you’re not using an incident management system to record, track, and analyze these associated incidents.

But if you were using an incident management system, you’d be able to quickly identify the trend, proactively establish a more substantial presence, and for this hotspot specifically.

Then, you’d see a significant decrease in related incidents and of all other potential hazards.

With your comprehensive reporting comes your ability to prove that your team responded appropriately and in an acceptable amount of time. 

To boost your defense, use your documentation from your guard tour system to prove your team has efficiently completed all assigned tours according to schedule.

The most significant problem to eradicate is your liability exposure.

Be smart with your analytics and use your accurate documentation to supplement your efforts and solidify your property’s liability defense.

It gives you the peace of mind you deserve.

Over to You

Using analytics is crucial to the effectiveness of your operation. Accurate documentation is also vital for your ability to prove that effectiveness in a court of law.

So, are you a first-class security operation that uses analytics and can provide complete, accurate documentation for improved liability defense?

Editor's note: This post was originally published in December 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness and freshness.