089: Do Performance Reviews and Post Inspections Really Matter?

  We all claim to do performance reviews and post inspections. That’s part of our sales pitch. But when we’re a medium-sized company with about 100 staff, we don’t necessarily have the money to put enough supervisors out in the field for consistent reviews.

If you have software in place, you can see performance metrics without having to be there. The record is ongoing, it’s time-stamped, it has GPS information that can include photos. As an owner, you can see what your officers’ activity levels are over long periods of time.

3 Myths About Performance Reviews and Post Inspections

“We don’t need performance reviews because we have supervisors in the field.” We all have supervisors on the field, but if we’re a 100-person firm, they’re the same people who are doing our patrols and our alarm responses. By the end of the shift, if they have five minutes to check another guy, they’re probably going to take that time to grab something at a drive-through. Clients know that.

“We don’t need post inspections because we know our guys.” Sure, when you’re a 100-person company you probably can know every officer. But when you get to 150 people, you have to have quality assurance documentation to keep your contracts. You’re not going to grow to 300 people unless you can show clients performance reviews to prove you're doing your job.

“We don’t need performance reviews because we have a great reputation.” It’s not your reputation that raises client questions; it’s the industry’s reputation. Even if you’re doing a great job, you’ll have to prove it when rumors about another company raise questions about security services.

4 Benefits of Performance Reviews and Post Inspections

1. Performance reviews create a great environment for communicating expectations. Without performance reviews and regular post inspections, you have to communicate everything during officer onboarding. That puts you in a position where if you correct an officer, he can complain that he wasn’t trained properly.
   
   
2. Performance reviews and post inspections help identify needs. Without reviews and inspections, you won’t understand the gaps between what your officers are doing and what the customer expects. The expectation could be as simple as having a flashlight on site. But you have to meet it, otherwise your contract won’t renew. The market’s too competitive. Reviews also let you know each officer’s strong and weak points, so you can help them do their best and be ready for the next opportunity you offer.
   
   
3. Performance reviews help owners understand how well supervisors are doing. If performance reviews differ among different divisions, you know how you need to train or support your managers. Do they need help finding good guards? Are they having trouble maintaining customers? A lot of guard companies have trouble retaining good people so anything you can do to equip your people will help.
   
   
4. Performance reviews help determine compensation, identify promotion candidates. You want to pick your supervisors, operations, and management staff from the ranks. You can’t make objective decision without good information from performance reviews and post inspections.