The International Foundation for Protection Officers recently released the findings of their security officer research project, a report titled “The Competence of Frontline Workers and What They Say About Their Work.” The survey of 10,625 security guards around the globe sought to identify the wide range of responsibilities held by security officers, the complexity of those tasks and frontline security officers’ perceptions of their field.
The report begins by noting the negative stereotypes of security officers, including laziness and a lack of competence in the skills necessary for their job. In response to this perception, the report surveyed guards from Canada, Ecuador, India, Ireland, Nigeria, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and the United States to determine their thoughts on the role of a security officer. The report also collected demographic data about the field, aimed to identify knowledge gaps around important guarding tasks and analyzed regional patterns present in the results.