In last month’s article we reviewed how benchmarking can be used to justify your janitorial staffing. This month’s article will discuss how you can use benchmarking to validate that your security contractor is using the appropriate staffing levels to secure your facility. If the numbers look unfavorable, we even can use benchmarking to evaluate a bid for services.
In these days of heightened security concerns, most organizations are reassessing their security plans and staffing levels. Often there is a security incident that causes the re-evaluation. Sometimes the security services go through a contract rebid; other times the existing contractor is asked to provide a proposal for additional staffing services or an updated staffing plan.
Since labor for security services makes up about 90% of security costs, the vendor with the lowest proposed staffing levels or the lowest hourly rate usually has the lowest costs. But the lowest cost staffing level proposal may not be appropriate to secure of your facilities and you may want to consider additional monitors or other electronic solutions instead of just adding additional staff. Still, you can use benchmarking data to determine if the security contractor is either adequately staffed or proposing a reasonable staffing plan for the required security services.
What is needed for this evaluation of security staffing? Most benchmarking surveys will collect their staffing data on a full-time equivalent (FTE) annual basis. Depending upon the level of detail, the survey could ask for:
- Total staff
- Staffing by internal and contract workers
Our experience shows that most security staffing level questions come down to an evaluation of total security staff. For security services, nearly all services will be provided by the contractor so in most cases total staff and staffing by contract workers will be same value. There normally will be some internal staff to manage the security contract but it is minimal compared to the total contract cost.
Determining and keeping the appropriate security staffing levels is probably one of the more critical decisions that facilities managers and the senior leadership team can make. If you are understaffed, then there are risks to both the facility and the occupants. Entrances may not be properly monitored, routine patrols may not occur at the appropriate frequency, background checks may not be completed, etc. If you are overstaffed, the workforce is not being used effectively and resources that should be used for more productive purposes will be wasted.
Figure 1 presents a benchmarking example to illustrate how easy and valuable the process should be and how you can avoid the problem of too much or too little staff. This approach allows you obtain the key output report of staffing per securable area.
Our input data shows the number of internal and contract staff for our 1.3 million sq. ft. office facility which operates two shifts per day, five days a week, situated in a suburban area of a major US city.
Provided courtesy of FM BENCHMARKING.
Senior management has questioned the staffing level and believes it should be reduced. The routine scope of services provided is shown in Figure 2 and the building occupants are reluctant to allow any significant reductions.
Provided courtesy of FM BENCHMARKING.
Note that with four guarded entrances and 2,755 visitors per year our minimum staffing levels for these functions are at least 12 staff1. Other staff needed for monitoring card readers and various patrols are also easy to quantify.
The graph in Figure 3 shows the staffing level performance compared with a group of facilities that most closely matches our own. This allows you to see at a glance how our facility compares with other office buildings in suburban areas. The overall performance ranges from about 28,000 SF to 6,000 SF secured per person. About half the group is in the second and third quartiles between approximately 16,000 and 12,000 SF secured per person.
Filters: Type of facility: office, suburban setting
Provided courtesy of FM BENCHMARKING.
Our building is shown in yellow in the first quartile with a value of 22,750 SF secured per worker. Our costs are also in the first quartile and the facility, when compared with others in our peer group, seems about right for the level of security services required. Perhaps a few security rounds could be eliminated or some other service reduced. This example clearly shows the power of benchmarking to support our staffing level decision-making.
1There are 4 entrances for two shifts per day, which is 8 staff. Allowing for some extended hours at the beginning and end of each shift (typical) and relief (breaks, etc.), standard practice is to allow for an additional 50%, which would be 4 more staff—thus, 12 staff in total.