by Security is a lot more than simply locks, alarms, and CCTV. Effective risk management that will reduce the threat of criminal and anti-social behaviour stems from understanding what leads to such behaviours and what can be done to prevent it.
The organisations and security companies who are most effective at doing what they do are the ones who understand this fact and account for human psychology when designing and implementing their security systems.
Prime Security services and human psychology are closely interlinked and in this article we will examine this relationship in much closer detail, investigating how the biases and preconceptions we all possess could be impacting on our safety and the safety of those around us.
Understanding Risk Perception
We might like to think of all criminals as mindless thugs who pick their targets randomly and that those who are targeted were simply unlucky. This is rarely the case however.
Just like you and I, criminals have a build in risk management system in their minds and their actions will be controlled heavily by how they perceive a certain risk.
How we perceive risk is based on our past lived experiences and inherent cognitive biases.
Criminals will make a decision when they see you site, based on the perceived risk they believe they face. If the reward is high enough, they may be willing to take more risks, but the more doubt you can put in their mind and the more security measures are visible on your property, the higher the perceived risk and the less likely you are to become their next victim.
A culture of deviance
If you create an atmosphere in your workplace where minor security or health and safety breaches become normalised, a culture of deviance is established, and much more serious incidents are much more likely to occur.
Ignoring fire evacuation drills, nicking the odd piece of stationary, not wearing the correct PPC for certain tasks. Let your standards drop and your employees will become desensitised to risk and believe that their actions have no consequences. When a real security breach happens, the response will be insufficient as a result of this culture.
A culture of care
Look after your staff and your staff will look after you. We aren’t saying that you should expect your staff to put themselves in harm’s way in the event of a security breach but if you create a culture where staff know they are valued and respected they are much more likely to want to help you protect the business itself.
It could be something as simple as noticing that a fire door isn’t closing properly or the fire escape alarm doesn’t go off. If your staff want to help you succeed they are much more likely to report these things and provide you with valuable information that you can use to optimise your security systems.
At the end of the day this will help your staff as much as you by creating a safe and happy working environment.