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Employee of the Month or Predator: Could You Tell the Difference?
Blog on Security Staff Management • posted 02/13/12
Last week we wrote about unimaginable abuse at a Los Angeles-area elementary school where photos surfaced to reveal horrific goings-on behind classroom doors, shattering the school’s façade of normalcy. In an unprecedented move, the school district temporarily closed the school. Then reopened it with an entirely new staff, reassigning all of the school’s 150 teachers and administrators. The culture was deemed to be that toxic.
One of the teachers—who is now facing sexual misconduct allegations—was a “teacher of the year” award winner in 2010. Though it’s an extreme example, papering over problems can afflict any security department. Security personnel may appear to be working well—and performance reviews may paint a glowing picture—but do a little digging and you may discover that you’re getting an inflated view of officer and supervisor performance.
One survey of 20,000 supervisory personnel found that 90 percent admitted to giving glowing evaluations to problem—and even dangerous—employees. Faced with poor performance, some supervisors simply avoid the hassle of giving negative reviews and check the “satisfactory” box instead. And the managers—the very ones who are letting problem employees slide year after year—often receive glowing annual reviews themselves.
The result? A spiraling “accountability gap.” (The kind that can lead a well-intentioned school district to bestow accolades on a teacher who is simultaneously abusing students.)
The solution? Security directors can better assure quality performance if they have a system in which:
- Supervisors tell officers what to do. For example, if a security officer’s job description includes “safety” or “customer service” under the “job responsibilities” heading, identify what that specifically means you want the security officer to do. What acts do a good “customer service” security officer need to perform in your organization? Don’t appraise a security officer on a job task unless you have made it clear what specific standards you have for that responsibility.
- The security director ensures that all supervisors are judging officers on the same criteria. The performance standards that a security department develops should apply to all security staff who performs the same job. Some security directors choose to standardize and make more objective job performance criteria through the use of numbers (an officer’s percentage of patrols completed on time, incident response time, percent of reports completed on time and accurately, and so on).
- Supervisors have training in handling problem officers. First-line supervisors don’t usually fall into the accountability gap out of laziness, but because they lack the skills to stay out of it. They typically develop “learned helplessness” when confronted with poor quality officers because they have not been taught the human relation skills and techniques to deal with problem individuals.
- Managers clarify for supervisors the powers they have. Supervisors may also let performance slide because they aren’t sure what they can do about it. Managers need to tell supervisors what they can do to assure performance and provide the back-up supervisors need to wage a successful battle against problem staff. The survey noted earlier found that “I have no support from above” was the most common reason that front-line supervisors cite for why they can’t turn poor performers around.
- Managers develop standards for supervisor leadership. Everyone with supervisory duties, right down to the patrol sergeant, needs to have their performance tied to the performance of the employees who report to them. They need to either correct every personnel performance problem or report to their supervisor on the problem they are having correcting it. This “fix-or-report” element should be the single largest factor in the performance review of anyone with supervisory responsibilities.
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