Dear Members,
On one of the WA groups, Administrator of the forum has brought a topic for discussion. Today's topic is "What is security management and what are different terms and conditions of security management?"
I have given reply to this post. It is as below:
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Dear Mr Ajay Thaokar,
Security Management refers to the security of the following:
a) Security of the employees: - Security of the employees covers audit of the fire and safety hazard, security of the employees if the cab facility is provided and security while working at the workplace also. Let us forget, once in a while we come across with a news of sexual assault on women employees while going to the home whereas woman employee of prominent IT company was murdered by the security guard while working on Saturday. Therefore, the challenge to the security department of being approachable. If some employee feels unsafe, he/she must not hesitate to project his/her concerns to the security or at least HR Department.
b) Security of the material: - This is an age-old issue. Proper checks must be made for incoming and outgoing material. To take the material out of the company, there are two types of Gate Passes. One is returnable and another is non-returnable. Rules must be well defined as to who is authorised to sign the gate passes and what should be the flow.
c) Security of the perimeter: - Perimeter security covers the security of the fence and security of the lights adjoining the to the fence. At least once a week, security manager himself or someone on his behalf must check the fence, trees close to the fence and lights.
d) Security of the information: - Breach of sensitive information is a major cause of concern. However, considering the technical aspects of this security, a separate department needs to be raised. Security of the information done through access control, disabling the USB drives of the computers and above all obtaining “Non-disclosure Agreement” (NDA) from the employees who deal with the sensitive information.
Role of the HR Department: - Since this is an HR forum, it merits adding one exclusive paragraph on the role of HR Department in augmenting the security on the components mentioned above. First is selecting the right kind of persons. _How many persons are really interested to make career in security?_ Many times, it is said jokingly that those who do not get job anywhere, they end up in joining security. The neglect of the security department starts right at this stage.
The second challenge is payment to the security guards. When an agreement is made with the security agency, it is based on the payment of the minimum wages to the frontline security guard. This happens even at the very hi-fi MNCs as well. By paying minimum wages can we expect a high-quality work? Since the minimum wages are paid, security personnel do 12-hour shift so that they get overtime of four hours every day. The worst is still to come. Absenteeism is very high at that level. To offset the absence, owners of the security agency assign immediate shift of 12-hours but at the nearby company. Security guards out of temptation to get more money work sometimes for 24 hours even more than that. Since this practice is going on for the decades, today not many security agencies are there who are ready to provide security personnel for just 8-hour shift. How many HRs are ready to come forward to break this vicious cycle that remains to be seen!
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar
On one of the WA groups, Administrator of the forum has brought a topic for discussion. Today's topic is "What is security management and what are different terms and conditions of security management?"
I have given reply to this post. It is as below:
++++
Dear Mr Ajay Thaokar,
Security Management refers to the security of the following:
a) Security of the employees: - Security of the employees covers audit of the fire and safety hazard, security of the employees if the cab facility is provided and security while working at the workplace also. Let us forget, once in a while we come across with a news of sexual assault on women employees while going to the home whereas woman employee of prominent IT company was murdered by the security guard while working on Saturday. Therefore, the challenge to the security department of being approachable. If some employee feels unsafe, he/she must not hesitate to project his/her concerns to the security or at least HR Department.
b) Security of the material: - This is an age-old issue. Proper checks must be made for incoming and outgoing material. To take the material out of the company, there are two types of Gate Passes. One is returnable and another is non-returnable. Rules must be well defined as to who is authorised to sign the gate passes and what should be the flow.
c) Security of the perimeter: - Perimeter security covers the security of the fence and security of the lights adjoining the to the fence. At least once a week, security manager himself or someone on his behalf must check the fence, trees close to the fence and lights.
d) Security of the information: - Breach of sensitive information is a major cause of concern. However, considering the technical aspects of this security, a separate department needs to be raised. Security of the information done through access control, disabling the USB drives of the computers and above all obtaining “Non-disclosure Agreement” (NDA) from the employees who deal with the sensitive information.
Role of the HR Department: - Since this is an HR forum, it merits adding one exclusive paragraph on the role of HR Department in augmenting the security on the components mentioned above. First is selecting the right kind of persons. _How many persons are really interested to make career in security?_ Many times, it is said jokingly that those who do not get job anywhere, they end up in joining security. The neglect of the security department starts right at this stage.
The second challenge is payment to the security guards. When an agreement is made with the security agency, it is based on the payment of the minimum wages to the frontline security guard. This happens even at the very hi-fi MNCs as well. By paying minimum wages can we expect a high-quality work? Since the minimum wages are paid, security personnel do 12-hour shift so that they get overtime of four hours every day. The worst is still to come. Absenteeism is very high at that level. To offset the absence, owners of the security agency assign immediate shift of 12-hours but at the nearby company. Security guards out of temptation to get more money work sometimes for 24 hours even more than that. Since this practice is going on for the decades, today not many security agencies are there who are ready to provide security personnel for just 8-hour shift. How many HRs are ready to come forward to break this vicious cycle that remains to be seen!
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar