4 Questions to Ask Before Hiring Your First Security Employee

Hiring well & employee retention is one of the marks of a successful security company. It can also be one of the most difficult and impactful processes a company owner can deal with.

A lot of small business owners wear many hats in their organization; they will start out doing everything from marketing and operations to sales. Many will supervise their officers in the field or walk sites themselves for a time. With success comes the need to delegate — you can’t do everything yourself forever. In time, you need to find the right people to take on each of these essential roles.

Despite what many people think, security is a customer service industry — and a people-focused industry, above all. The officers and managers you hire are the face of your company. For this reason alone, good hiring practices are key to success. In the security world, your talent for looking over a person’s credentials and knowing how they’ll be as an employee goes a long way.

Want to go further? Our Ultimate Guide to Retaining Your Security Guards covers what happens after the hire: how to keep the good people you work so hard to find.

When is the right time to hire your first employee? Ask yourself these key questions first:

1. Are you willing to raise prices?

In order to attract business, a lot of company leaders will whittle their operations down to keep rates below market. Of course, these companies start out with exceptionally slim margins. Hiring new people usually gets offset in one of two ways: prices go up or profit margins get slimmer.

Getting stuck in a race to the bottom isn’t desirable for any security firm, new or old. There’s always someone who will be willing to go lower on price than you. Many of them will break labor laws or pay people under the table. For companies who are staying above the board, that makes it an impossible race to win. In reality, you want to win the contract without being the lowest bid.

If you are going to raise rates, are you in a position where you can comfortably do so? This isn’t so much a question of “can you push the margin” as much as it is one of “are you creating value for your clients?” And, equally important: do they know it?

In the security business, no news is good news, but it can also make it look like your guys aren’t doing anything. Do you create the kind of impactful incident reports that illustrate what your officers do? In order to raise your rates, you need to be creating a value that your customers will pay extra for. If you can’t raise rates on new clients and still win contracts, you aren’t in a position to hire.

How to make your value visible before you raise rates

Clients rarely push back on a fair rate increase when they can see what they are paying for. Before you raise prices to fund a new hire, make sure your reporting tells that story:

• Report every patrol, not just every incident. Completed tours, checkpoint scans and site tasks show consistent coverage, even on the quiet nights when nothing goes wrong.
• Deliver reports clients actually want to read. Clear, timely and professionally formatted reports signal the same quality your officers bring to the site.
• Tie your rates to the services in the contract. When billing rates, services and terms live in one place, like TrackTik Contracts & Invoicing, every invoice matches the work that was delivered.
• Price with a strategy, not a guess. Our breakdown of 3 pricing strategies for your hourly guard rate walks through ways to set a rate that covers payroll and still wins work.

2. Are you ready to onboard a new person?

Every company owner has their own way of running things, and showing new hires the proper procedures takes time. Big corporations have people on staff who are tasked with showing new employees the ropes. Chances are at your company, that task is on you. Before you hire someone new, ask: do I have onboarding practices for the role in place?

You can’t just drop everything to onboard a hire, but you also can’t hire someone and give them no direction. The solution to this problem comes from preparation. Documenting a role in your company makes bringing new hires into the fold easier. Document your procedures for post orders, contract best practices, documentation, and client interaction. That way, you have a record of how you want things done that can be made into training documents for new hires.

A simple onboarding checklist for your first hire

You do not need an HR department to onboard well. You need a repeatable sequence. Use this as a starting point and adapt it to the role:

1. Confirm licensing and paperwork. Verify the required guard license or certifications, collect employment documents and store them in one employee record.
2. Share the role description and expectations. Explain who they report to, how performance is measured and what great service looks like to your clients.
3. Walk through post orders and site procedures. Cover each site’s access points, emergency contacts, escalation paths and client preferences.
4. Train on reporting standards. Share examples of strong daily activity and incident reports so the new hire knows the bar from the first shift.
5. Shadow before solo. Pair the new hire with you or an experienced officer for their first shifts at each site.
6. Check in at 30, 60 and 90 days. Short, scheduled conversations catch problems early and show the new hire you are invested in their success.

With TrackTik People Management, each hire gets one record from onboarding to every shift, with certifications, pay rates and documents in one place, so assignments only go to officers who are qualified for them.

3. Does this role have a direct impact on revenue?

Hiring is never a revenue neutral process. Company leaders can either take on employees who generate revenue (and create more operational costs) or help guide operations (and increase overhead). Finding the right balance is important.

That’s not to say that hiring is a cost sink, though. Security professionals know better than most that making an investment that doesn’t directly generate profit can improve outcomes across all operations — isn’t that what security services do for their clients, after all? Hiring an operations person can free you up for sales. Hiring sales should free you up to do operations.

Understand how your company operates and where you need help — don’t just hire for momentary need. Take a step back and think — is this role going to generate revenue by improving our client success? Make your decisions using both dollars and sense.

Comparing common first hires

The right first hire depends on where your time is going today. Use this comparison to see which role returns the most value to your business:

First hire	What it frees you to do	Revenue impact	Have this in place first
Security officer	Step back from covering shifts yourself	Direct: billable hours on existing and new contracts	Post orders, reporting standards and a scheduling process
Field supervisor or operations manager	Focus on sales and client relationships	Indirect: stronger service quality and client retention	Clear authority, escalation rules and visibility into field activity
Sales or business development	Spend more time running operations	Direct: new contracts and renewals	A pricing strategy, proposal templates and proof of service
Office administrator	Get out of scheduling, payroll and billing spreadsheets	Indirect: fewer billing errors and faster cash flow	Documented back-office processes and connected systems

4. Do you understand local hiring laws and practices?

No hiring guide should overlook the legal side of things. Don’t set yourself up for trouble. Consult with your labor attorneys to make sure you are within the law during the hiring process. In a state like California, new hires may need to have specific certifications, licenses, and/or qualifications in order to do essential jobs in your company.

Requirements differ by state, province and country, and they change over time. Treat the list below as a starting point for the conversation with your attorney, not as legal advice.

Compliance basics to confirm before you make an offer

• Licensing and training. Most jurisdictions require security officers to hold a guard license or registration, and some require additional training hours or firearm permits.
• Worker classification. Confirm whether the role must be filled by an employee rather than an independent contractor.
• Wage, hour and overtime rules. Understand minimum wage, overtime thresholds and how they apply to long or back-to-back shifts. Our article on overtime compensation compliance covers the common pitfalls.
• Meal and rest breaks. Some states mandate breaks for officers on long shifts, which affects how you staff every post.
• Insurance and record keeping. Check workers’ compensation and liability coverage, and how long you must keep payroll and training records.

How TrackTik Helps a Growing Security Firm Hire with Confidence

Your first hire is the moment the business stops living in your head. Schedules, post orders, reports and invoices now have to work for someone other than you. That is where a connected platform pays off.

• Scheduling and people. Match officers to assignments based on skills, certifications and availability, with alerts that help prevent non-billable overtime.
• Proof of service. Tours, incident reports and site tasks are captured in the field and shared with clients, which supports the value conversation behind every rate increase.
• Back office. TrackTik Business Administration connects scheduling, time capture, billing and payroll, so the hours your officers work flow into accurate invoices without re-entry.

That is the path Armour Security followed. Learn how Armour Security grew from 3 guards to more than 1,250 on TrackTik, with transparent client reporting that became a differentiator in competitive bids.

In Summary:

Before you hire your next employee — and especially before hiring your first employee — take a step back and see how that decision will impact your company.

Is your decision a product of steady, sustainable growth or could your resources be used better elsewhere? Are you ready to offset the new payroll costs through higher prices or other cost cutting measures? Are you ready to onboard someone that you hire in an efficient way?

Hiring is a necessary part of growth. A growing officer team and strong crew behind the scenes is essential for a successful company. With a little planning, you will find the right people to make your company flourish.

Ready to see how TrackTik supports every stage of that growth? Book a TrackTik demo and we will walk you through scheduling, reporting and billing built for security firms like yours.