10 Strategies to Reduce Turnover Rates, Increase Engagement, and Retain Your Security Officers

Security guard turnover rates are thought to exceed 100% annually. Fortunately, the right strategies can reduce turnover, improve engagement and increase employee retention for private security firms and corporate security departments alike.

A Gallup poll found that nearly 70% of Americans aren’t engaged at work. Disengagement is often caused by boredom, low pay, poor communication or slow career development. While many industries feel the impact, the consequences are greater when a security guard checks out. People can get hurt, businesses may be exposed to increased theft and vandalism, and stressful situations such as a lost child, crowd control or a medical emergency can get out of hand.

With annual turnover rates over 100%, the average private security firm effectively replaces its entire workforce every 12 months. That hurts your bottom line and can lead to a worse customer experience. This article reviews the common reasons for turnover and shares 10 ways to reduce it, increase engagement and retain your best security officers.

In this article:

1. Increase wages and improve benefits
2. Set up efficient schedules
3. Ensure employees can succeed
4. Offer advancement and recognition
5. Provide ongoing training and education
6. Offer physical and mental health support
7. Understand officers’ long-term goals
8. Create a strong company culture
9. Provide strong leadership
10. Use software to find and retain talent

Leading Causes of Employee Turnover in the Security Industry

Before diving into solutions, it helps to understand why turnover is so high. Here are the most common reasons:

Low Pay and Minimal Benefits

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for security guards was $38,020 in May 2025, or roughly $18 an hour. That makes it difficult to live on a single income in most U.S. cities. Getting your pay and bill rates right is the foundation of retention.

Quality benefits are rare in the security industry and are usually limited to full-time employees. A lack of hours can drop an officer to part-time status and affect benefits eligibility.

Result: Security officers will leave for the slightest pay increase or access to better benefits.

Low Employee Engagement

An engaged employee is loyal to their company and makes decisions in its best interest. They are more reliable and more likely to go the extra mile for the customer, and they bring positive energy to work each day.

Disengaged employees, on the other hand, hurt company performance through increased absenteeism, more workplace accidents and lower productivity and profitability.

The link between low engagement and high turnover is well researched. Gallup has found that highly engaged teams show 23% greater profitability. Learn how to use your own operational data in the data-driven approach to security guard retention.

Result: Security officers will leave for another employer who makes them feel valued.

Ineffective Leadership or Poor Company Culture

Employees want to like their manager and perform for them. In return, they expect their manager to have their backs. A lack of training or mentoring, ineffective supervision and poor communication can leave officers feeling isolated, underappreciated and disrespected, and eventually disengaged.

Result: Security officers will leave when they feel management isn’t supporting them or ignores their scheduling and post preferences.

Poor Recruiting and Talent Management Strategies

Retention starts with hiring. It takes a certain personality to be a security officer: confident, aware and compassionate. Firms that don’t screen candidates for these qualities can expect continuous turnover.

Firms should also perform due diligence, including background checks, references, drug tests and competency tests, and make sure applicants understand the full scope of the role. Modern applicant tracking and onboarding makes this process faster and more consistent.

Result: Security officers will leave after they realize they may not be the right fit for the job.

The Real Cost of Security Guard Turnover

High turnover affects security firms and corporate security departments in several ways. It increases client risk because of inexperienced personnel, drives up recruiting and training costs and makes it harder to deliver quality service. This table shows where those costs come from.

Cost area	What it includes
Recruiting	Job ads, recruiter time and interviews for every open post
Screening and licensing	Background checks, drug tests and state licensing or guard card fees
Onboarding and training	Orientation, site training and supervisor time before an officer is fully productive
Overtime coverage	Overtime paid to existing officers while a post sits open
Lost productivity	Mistakes and missed tasks from new officers who don’t know the site yet
Client risk	Service gaps and inconsistent coverage that can put contracts in jeopardy

Together, these costs can hurt your business and limit future opportunities. That’s why security firms need a deliberate plan to reduce turnover and keep their teams engaged. Here are 10 practical ways to do it.

Top 10 Employee Retention Strategies for Security Officers

1. Increase Wages and Improve Benefits

Offering your security officers competitive wages is critical. High turnover is often the result of low wages and too few hours to make ends meet. Not sure of the going rate for quality officers in your market? The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes average wages by state and metro area to help you benchmark your pay, attract the best talent and reduce turnover.

If raising wages or offering a signing bonus isn’t possible, consider a basic group health plan or a secondary benefit such as a financial wellness package, including earned wage access apps that let employees reach part of their pay before payday in an emergency.

Other options include free uniforms, commuter passes, flexible schedules or assignments close to home. Perks like these can help make up ground on compensation.

2. Set Up Efficient Schedules

Poor scheduling and attendance practices lead to manual work and frantic phone calls. That creates errors, such as resource allocation that doesn’t match client requirements, and ultimately drives up overtime spending. Learn more about solving security scheduling and retention challenges.

By distributing shifts fairly across your team, you can reduce overtime while making sure everyone earns fair compensation. To retain your officers, offer shifts that fit their lifestyle and family obligations.

Regular no-call, no-shows may point to broader employee apathy or structural problems in your scheduling. Here’s a closer look at why security guards no-call, no-show.

3. Ensure Employees Can Succeed

Your officers become a trusted face and part of the client’s workforce, so it’s important that they like their post. Match officers to assignments based on shared goals, skills and interests.

Do they prefer to work alone at night or with a group? Do they want to walk patrols, stay at a security booth or sit behind a corporate reception desk? Assign the right person to the right role.

Next, give officers the tools and technology to do their jobs well. A security guard tour system that officers can access on mobile devices keeps them engaged, since checkpoint tours are a smart way to avoid boredom while making sure duties get done.

The right security workforce management solution lets officers log incidents, open report forms, capture photos and video, answer questions and trigger alerts from anywhere on the premises.

4. Offer Advancement Opportunities and Give Recognition

One of the easiest ways to earn loyalty from your officers is to make them feel appreciated. Recognize their contributions by increasing wages when possible, and spell out the requirements and timelines for raises or advancement.

Congratulate officers when they complete certification training or go the extra mile for a client. Positive reinforcement and a few kind words go a long way, because they show you are paying attention. TrackTik business intelligence makes it easier to spot top performers by tours completed, checkpoints scanned and positive client feedback.

Finally, find the officers who stand out and give them more responsibility or promote them to team lead. Employees who feel they are on a career path are more likely to stay.

5. Provide Ongoing Training and Education

Learning doesn’t end with initial certification and licensing. To keep your team sharp, offer continuing education, management classes and advanced training.

Provide practical, interactive training that prepares officers for real-life scenarios, and make sure it is engaging and relevant to their duties. Consider partnering with a provider that offers customized online training. Here are the keys to a successful and engaging security officer training program.

Training also creates career development opportunities that keep employees engaged.

6. Offer Physical and Mental Health Support

Investing in your officers and giving them access to the support they need is a must. In recent years, security officers have been on the front line of major and minor crises, facing increased aggression, verbal abuse and threats of violence.

Security officers are also at greater risk of experiencing violence simply by being on duty, which helps explain why a growing number of officers experience post-traumatic stress.

Security firms must help protect their officers’ mental and physical health. Offer counseling, medical care or workers’ compensation support after an officer is involved in a violent event to show you have their back. These technologies and best practices for keeping security guards safe can help.

7. Determine Your Security Officers’ Long-Term Goals

Few people want to be frontline security officers for their entire careers. Identify the officers who aspire to become supervisors and create a path to leadership.

Clear pathways to promotion and higher pay give ambitious officers a reason to work harder. Having supervisor candidates complete a set number of hours as a flex officer provides valuable on-the-job training and prepares them for the challenges of a leadership role. Explore common security guard career path options.

Some officers may even want to own a security firm one day. Take Pablo Rosa Jr., who used his field experience to go from security guard to founder of the Rosa International Group, which serves the retail, hospitality and multi-tenant property sectors.

8. Create a Strong Company Culture

A Glassdoor survey found that 77% of respondents consider a company’s culture before applying for a job, and 56% said culture was more important than salary for job satisfaction.

In other words, it isn’t always about the money. More than half of workers would take a job that paid less if they felt the company was a better fit.

Consider these ideas when building a culture that makes officers feel valued:

• Two-way communication: Leaders should hold regular meetings with managers and supervisors to encourage open communication and feedback.
• Team building: Sponsor activities such as game nights, company events or outings to a sporting event.
• Field check-ins: Encourage managers to check in with field officers regularly, and have officers check in on each other.
• Kudos and recognition: Use a newsletter or email to recognize exceptional employees, and offer incentives like gift cards, event tickets or extra paid time off.

9. Provide Strong Leadership

Great leaders know that an engaging culture starts at the top, and they treat employee engagement as a critical priority. They communicate well and use metrics to identify and mentor effective managers.

Just as non-commissioned officers are seen as the backbone of the Army, supervisors in security companies play a crucial role in reinforcing the organization’s values and standards.

Effective leaders communicate clear expectations to officers and follow the strategic plans that guide the company and support retention.

10. Use Software to Find and Retain Talent

Recruiting is a constant challenge because of the industry’s high turnover. Balancing tight margins with keeping your best people has always been difficult, but today’s technology makes it easier to create an environment that favors retention.

Human resources recruiting software helps security firms find the best talent by:

• Streamlining administrative tasks
• Speeding up the application process
• Scoring candidates
• Keeping seasonal employee data for callbacks

The best recruiting software works well with payroll and scheduling after hire, and it is sometimes part of a larger human capital management (HCM) suite. Good recruiting software publishes job postings to popular sites, schedules interviews, supports video interviews, sends offer letters and helps with compliance reporting.

After hire, TrackTik people management matches officers’ skills and certifications to assignments, while TrackTik business administration uses actual scheduling data to support accurate, on-time payroll. That reinforces your firm as a reliable employer, and managers can limit overtime while giving officers fair access to shifts.

Tracking and analyzing operational data also helps supervisors recognize and reward high performers.

Retention KPIs to Track

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Review these numbers monthly to see whether your retention efforts are working:

1. Annual and 90-day turnover rate, since many officers leave within the first few months.
2. No-call, no-show rate by site and supervisor, an early warning sign of disengagement.
3. Overtime hours per officer, because too much or too little overtime both push people out.
4. Time to fill open shifts and the number of uncovered hours each week.
5. Training and certification completion for new and existing officers.
6. Recognition and promotion activity, so top performers see a future with you.

Reduce Guard Turnover While Increasing Retention and Profitability With TrackTik

Recruiting and retention in physical security require constant attention and improvement, and reducing turnover must remain a priority for every private security firm. The effort pays off, because replacing an officer is far more expensive than keeping one.

Understanding the causes of officer turnover is step one. Putting these hiring and retention strategies into practice is step two. Step three is making sure you have the right platform to support your team. TrackTik, the security workforce management platform from Trackforce, brings scheduling, guard tours, performance data and HR tools together so officers get fair schedules, the right posts and recognition for great work.

Want to see how TrackTik can help you keep your best officers? Book a TrackTik demo.