 Good afternoon everybody. Thank you for joining us for another edition of condo insider that is put on from put on with white council of community associations. So today we're going to be talking about security guards and joining me will be site spike that is who is with secure toss, and we are going to be bringing him in in about a few minutes. See you soon. Hi spike. Nice to see you again. Oh, really nice to see you again. Looking good. So I have with me today and spike Dennis. He is the responsible principal guard and consultant with. He is with security toss is also the chair person of the board of private detectives and guards. So he has been in the security security guard business for quite a long time, or probably since he was a teenager. But security guard licensing started in 2013 under act 2008. So it requires that all guards, agents, operatives, assistance employed by a guard agency, even private business entities, or even government agency that act in a guard capacity shall apply to register with the board. And they have to meet certain requirements. So they also do pre license education, continuing education. But the main points is they have to be 18 years and older, have to have a high school or equivalent education. No mental disorder type of conditions. They do have to submit to a colonel background check. So at the very start, they're going to do at least eight hours of pre license education, and then four hours of continuing education every year. So every year they're going to renew their licensing, and they're going to go through the same criminal background tracks. As they did and they pay their fees. And then they can go out into the workforce. So, so let's start off with a couple of definitions like, so what does it mean to act in a guard or guard capacity. Okay, so actually our capacity language was developed as part of that Act 2008 that went into effect in 2013. So it means performance of safekeeping observation and reporting functions. Safekeeping means protecting property assets or persons through physical presence to detect and deter illegal actions and appropriate action violations of property premises rules or code of conduct. Physical presence means manning a post, or personning a post. The stationary guard includes the law actually includes bouncers and patrolling other premises. So it's physically responding to alarms, incident, emergencies on a property and so forth. That's a basic definition. So it's quite interesting when I was reading this, I'm looking at it, it's that even bouncers are considered guards. Essentially act in a guard capacity. But if you're just an individual that's watching security cameras, you really don't need to be licensed as a guard. Actually, I really do. That is one of the functions of a guard. And depending on the circumstances, let's say central station CCTV monitoring would not need to be licensed as guard. If they're in a condo working in the security command center or security office, they would need to be licensed as guard. So if they're pretty much watching the cameras all day, and they're working in a condo, technically they should be licensed. Yeah, because regards if they're, if the guarding, if being a guard is incidental to their other job functions and duties. Really should be decided on a case by case basis looked at by management of the board or their voice attorney. They may not need to be like. So, in the courses, there's really like that here's always been the conversation going on between a lot of different people is the difference between a security guard that's in a residential condo type environment, versus one that's in a commercial, like your shopping malls and things of that nature. Is the rules or what they really do slightly a little bit different. You're dealing with two different types of properties. Different types of premises. In general terms, yes, I mean, there is a difference here. In a commercial setting or even mixed use that have condos and business, you're guarding not only commercial, but people's castles where they live, such as the case with condos. Commercials, you're guarding their workplaces and there's different challenges. So the operating procedures that the guards follow are built differently. Businesses commercial or open to the public doing business hours. They're not screening visitors is done differently business hours. And the risks are different. So I noticed that you also one of the positions and I can imagine this would apply to both residential and commercial. Is you're really protecting the property. You're there to protect the property number one, whether it's residential build condo building or commercial, you're there to protect the property itself. And, and hopefully the little aspects of the business as well. The people coming in and out, you know, you see an incident you report it or do what whatever the procedure is established. What about fire. They are trained in their classes about fire safety and stuff like that. Yes, there's a basic training. It does does include a fire component. One of the biggest risks to facilities, whether they're commercial or residential, are fire water damage. So, typically security guards after their initial basic training undergo additional training on his site. Whether commercial or condo and condos. You set a minimum number of hours, you're using standardized with the operating procedures that the guards should be familiar with. They were shown that their basic training. But typically guards will train for the experience and floaters and go to different sites. They don't need a whole lot of training. If they're relatively new or inexperienced at that site, they'll need to train somewhere between 16 and 40 hours initially. And I'm sure part of it comes with experience. But do they get some training about how to write their incident reports or how to write their observations type of thing and how to report like little weird things that they've been noticing? And they need to document. Are they educated or kind of give examples of how to clearly write a report? Yes, they need to be able to write fluid and they can do it. So, yes, the answer to that. And in today's environment, security guards on probably most sites now are equipped with devices, a security device called vision. So it is an electronic digital instrument that records their patrols where they were at what time. It allows them to enter information into fields for incident reports. Also, their hourly logs are in there, photographs for incidents. And the devices also allow for analysis of incidents over a period of time. So that can assist in security planning, the where, the why, the who and the what, and the sense of carrying on site can be outlined. Well, that's a really good point. So if a condo is looking for a higher security guard company, that's a good point to bring out is like what does a security guard bring to the table as far as what you just said, incident reports and all that kind of stuff. Because that's a plus to me. It's called guard management system. And so, again, it's patrol documentation, incident report, all of those logs and enables analysis the client. You get a, you access the website. And secures us to get your own dashboard. So the client can just log in, see all the guard activity, review logs, incident reports, the photograph. That's cool. That's really cool. So one of the other questions I get asked, or some people have kind of like talked to me about is how there's like a like a guard code of ethics. You know, some people will say, well, you know, they're involved in something that they were off duty, they witnessed something, and they got became involved in the police recall that how were they supposed to respond or when they're outside of their employment capacity. Well, they would respond as a private citizen. I mean, many, many, many security guards are trained in CPR and first aid. I wouldn't say the majority, but most kind of, you know, most contracts, especially for commercial require that the guards be treated first aid. So as citizens out of the out and about, that's typically most ski officers are responsive to emergency situations. They're not at that moment, obviously employed. So as far as liability goes, they're on their own. We have laws here that protect the private citizens. Now rules where they're off duty, they can't be, they need to be like out of their uniform. Yes. I mean, going to it from work, it's common. We expect them to arrive at work. Once they're at their residential location, they should, you know, I know they have a shirt, usually have a shirt underneath, you know, I see some going 711 the shirts all open. You can tell that they're off duty or I need to get a drink. Drive home, you know. Okay, so off duty, they should be, it should not be in uniform when they're off the clock. Well, that's a kind of a catch. This gets down. I mean, if you've got to take a bus to your job site, there's no place to change. You're going to be there just before the start of your shift. It may be difficult to be ready to go. Once they're home, once they're home, they're capable of changing clothes. Right. And then there's been a lot of incidences that has been happening around about picture taking and being approached by security guards, you know, and individuals taking pictures. And one of my questions I wrote, where were you, commercial residential? And what were you, what were you photographing? I go, there's a big difference of what you were photographing, you know, but that's general, you know, general items you're not focused on someone's line looking in, or the swimming pool. You know, you're just taking general pictures of the building. Is there, like, I'm sure a commercial, it might be it like a no, no commercial. You know, you have realtors that need to take pictures of the property, or even owner that wants if they're doing it force out by owner. I mean, what is the general rules about picture taking? A lot of it would depend on the property and what the SOP is for that, but if the person's a resident, you know, that obviously cuts one way. If it's somebody that's not authorized to be on the property, you would want the security officer, the security guard to challenge the person to identify who they are and what they're going to do. I have a justifiable reason, if they're a resident of the building, I mean, it shouldn't be an issue considering that they're not taking inappropriate pictures. But I would think a commercial property might be a little bit more like, well, you're taking pictures of what for? A commercial property is definitely because of the threat to the facility because the types of businesses that are there may raise the risk level. So if it looks suspicious, the security officers should challenge the people in a commercial environment. So if, like, if I were to hire a security guard on my property, my condo, I mean, they can help with household enforcement. Like check the parking lot, making sure everybody's up to date with their stuff, you know, that's in accordance with the house rules. How much do you guys put on for them to enforce house rules? Well, again, it depends on the property and the board's philosophy. It's difficult to have guards enforcing health rules, particularly when there's could be hazards involved. So again, water, fire, barbecues, condo and house rules, you know, so they pull that sort of thing. But I mean, it's quite common. Here's one big question. So you have a guard that's been on the property for a while and it could be either commercial or could be residential. So, you know, over time, they get to know everybody's coming and going, you know, familiar faces, things of that nature. And what if they start to notice some weird things that they really shouldn't be doing? You know, I mean, and it happens, even resident managers and residents, I mean, they get familiar and they kind of let it slide, but then it starts to get bigger and bigger and bigger. How do you guys handle those kind of situations where you need to, you know, sometimes there's that line drawn, like, okay, you stepped over the line. I let you go a little bit, now you stepped over that line. Now I got to write you up or trespass you or whatever the situation is going to occur. Are your guards trained and how to deal with those kind of situations? Yeah, I mean, talking about the guards themselves or, as you say, resident managers being too familiar with this. Yeah, I mean, it comes to each site has a site supervisor. Each shift to have somebody in charge is more than one guard. So, you know, conduct is really important. Being more familiar with what we're talking about condo setting. Same applies to commercial though. So, yeah, we want to stop that, report it. Discipline as required. We have a verbal warning with the morning, depending on the previous the conduct to. But yeah, no, we have code of ethics. And each site may have certain issues that are repeated due to the way that the site is configured or the type of activity. And it would be like, you know, you have people that scavenge the trash cans. And a one condo building like we don't like them doing that. I go, well, here's one. One thing to think about is, are they throwing the trash out as they're digging through it. I would have an issue with that. You know, I could don't be making a mess that we have to clean up. You know, if you want to scavenge the trash can but don't be making a mess for us. And, you know, some people, you know, but and then some condos are like, no, not at all. And I'm like, okay. But then you start to alienate these people and then you create another kind of worms, you know, by then retaliating because you keep them off the property. You know, so it gets to be kind of, I always thought of it, it's kind of touchy, you know, it needs to be handled with tact and professionalism. It's like a child, like when you're trying to tell your child, no, you can't do that anymore. You know, and then they take that inch, like, we told you, you know, and I said, you have to remember you also don't want that retaliatory tactic, but you don't want to let it go to the other extreme, you let them take over. I think that's, is there a lot of training that you guys go into that? Yes, there is a lot of training and dealing with essentially trespassers on the property. It's become a very high risk area with some of the mentally unhoused, maybe also on drugs. In the past 24 months, we've had a couple of security officers killed. It's getting to be a scary world lately. Yeah, both in commercial environments. So, yeah, it needs to be handled tactfully, safely. And there is specific training on how to conduct yourself, conduct yourself in your department. So there's threat training, I want to say, some sort of threat training. So in the four hour CEs, what do you guys normally do in the four hour CEs? The four hour CEs are triennial now for re-registration. It used to be a biennial that changed in 2017. So there's a smorgasbord of subjects in there that underpins the basic eight hours or adds additional knowledge. The next training cycle will be 2024 registration. I don't have the outlines in front of me, but typically it's five or six topics included in the four hour. But safety, a lot of fire, a lot of repetition, but good underpining. Okay. All right, cool. Anything else you want to add in about security guards? Things to look for that board should look for in a quality security guard? Yeah, you know, getting quality service, it's really about the quality of the person on site. Security is very important. It's become highly competitive. Everybody's short of staff. So pay rates are risen dramatically for security personnel. And the clients are by and large almost all are willing to discuss that and share the burden of increasing wages so we can attract good quality personnel. One of the security officers themselves is the supervision, data deal supervisors, and then your managerial staff. SCURITOS land, they're called district managers. These guys are experienced security professionals. They manage a couple hundred to 300 guards. They have in assisting them, the scheduling managers and field supervisors. So you want them on the board or at least the management to be familiar with the district managers of managing the security force that's on their property and the person of the immediate personnel that reports to that district manager. Is the district manager also familiar with the property that individual properties and not memorize it, but kind of know general the likes and don't likes of the property. Yes, definitely. And they actually write the written standard operating procedures. That takes a lot of collaboration with a client. They have to know is obviously as much as a security guard knows about that property. I mean, that's really important. Those people are available and responsive to the board and the resident manager. Okay. Do. How many clients do you guys even have? I mean, I mean, I know you guys are in that big building off of Nimitz. That's probably proprietary, but as far as personnel, around 1500-1600 guards now. Wow. You're 2000 again. Wow, that's a lot. That's quite a bit of handful. That's a great Michael Gall, our new area of vice president, who came up to the ranks, former Marine Ranger, really great guy, knows the electronics well as well as the security guard business. So, and he's got a great district manager working for us now. So who does your actual presentations like with the board wanted to do? Why did you guys to come in to explain about Securitas? Who would they call to make them? I would have them call Michael Gall is the area of vice president. It's called a direct line and we'll rough them the right person. There's an individual there, Clint Currigan, who does the proposals and then the district managers will be having that account or Mike Gall personally will go meet with that client, that potential client. So, right off the bat, we're working with the team. Hey, any words of wisdom for our condo boards about security? Have a good contract and contract and consults your legal counsel and then really bet your who's going to be on the security team. You know, you want you're interested in meeting the area vice president who's running the Hawaiian Islands and as well as a district manager. Who would be assigned to that site and most of the companies are set up. Our companies are set up similarly. Safe kind of management team. Okay, cool. All right, so we're kind of nearing our end. So we're going to close off here. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Spike. We're joining me today. Look forward to collaborating with you in the future. And have a great week. Enjoy the weekend. This is Memorial. A long weekend coming up. A long weekend coming up. I'm going to look forward to it. So everybody, thank you for joining us for a condo insider. So if you're looking for security, make sure you review the video and start your journey. And also don't forget our other video that we already, we already did a segment on security cameras. That was really good. That was a good segment on security cameras. The do's and don'ts because those are, they have some important tips. Okay. Thank you, Spike. Thank you. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechawaii.com. Mahalo.