The Advantages of Hiring Security Guards for Warehouses

In warehouses products are either produced, stored or both. In most cases products, equipment and materials are expensive and need to be protected from theft. In many cases safety and security protocol will dictate to limit access to employees and to protect proprietary information like designs or formulas or research results. Many warehouses have wholesale merchandise stored, which needs to be protected from theft. I have been called to many warehouses to provide a free security consultation, because equipment, product, materials or proprietary information were stolen. Most of the time management does not know what exactly happened, because no security plan or even security guard was in place.

Many businesses react to loosing merchandise worth thousands of dollars or pertinent information to competitors when they hire a security company. They are mostly inexperienced with security companies and do not know what questions to ask and what to focus on when making a hiring decision. In most cases the theft has recently occurred and the owners or management want to bring a security company on board as soon as possible. Here I would like to caution potential clients, because bringing on the wrong security company will do more harm than benefit. 

A good security company will provide a free security consultation by an experienced security consultant, who will observe the client's business in an effort to understand potential risk factors. He will take time to ask employees and management questions that will enable him to understand the way business is conducted at the facility. Based on his findings he will make recommendations for a security plan to the people in charge. Once the security plan is approved post orders will be customized and the right people will be trained and deployed. Supervisors will frequently visit the site to ensure that security services are provided according to the security plan and post orders. The security consultant will return after a couple weeks to check and make necessary adjustment to the plan after seeking input from management, employees, security guards and security supervisors.

In many instances management tries to hire a company quickly without researching if a security company will provide all the services described above. Simply putting a security guard at the entrance or exit will not address the actual problem and will not prevent theft from happening again. That is why putting the wrong security company in charge will do more harm than good, because it will provide a false sense of security. A good security company will work professionally by conducting research and by presenting a plan.