Engage Your Guards and Gain Automation with Enterprise Solutions

Enterprise solutions offer more automation, more control, and increased awareness of your security business operations, both internally and externally.

Traditionally, business operations have ended up spread across a variety of systems and you might be working in separate platforms for HR, time and attendance, holidays, employee intranet, learning management, patrolling, auditing, payroll, billing and more. This happens frequently when a business starts small and grows into an enterprise. This leads to manual fixes and workarounds to get data and information from one system to another — leading to additional work for your already busy back office staff.

That’s why there are many advantages of enterprise workforce management software over tactical software solutions within the security sector. But implementing new software or altering working processes to incorporate a system change can be difficult to manage. And, that change comes with additional cost and risk, particularly around the chances of your software implementation failing to solve the problems of your workforce. This risk of a workforce not adopting or adapting to new technology is also a potential set back.

Failure to adopt new ways of working very often stems from a lack of understanding within the employee base as to why things are changing. This is sometimes attributed to your employee’s limited knowledge and experience around technology. Concerns around what it is or how to use it can produce feelings of anxiety and fear, which all work to promote a lack of enthusiasm for change.  When implementing change throughout an organisation, not effectively engaging with your employees will often lead directly to a prolonged or failed attempt to innovate working practices.

For management teams considering the implementation of new technology, the ‘top down push’ strategy may seem like the easiest route to take – but the risks to the overall project are far greater. While a ‘bottom up acceptance’ may take longer and involve more resources, it will ultimately be more successful.

Engage Early

By engaging employees and listening to their concerns from the beginning of the process, then training them and making sure they understand they’re a valuable part of the implementation process, you can lay a foundation for a smoother transition. They’ll understand early on that their involvement is critical and the chosen solution will be a tool that fits their needs.

Set Up a Forum

Setting up a forum where users can ask questions and express concerns to the management team build upon a well-planned early engagement strategy. Many users will have very genuine concerns some of which they may be embarrassed about.

Give it Time

To successfully engage with your workforce, you need to allow for adequate time, and you need to think about your communication strategy. Ensuring employees understand not only the advantages the technology will bring to their working day but also the benefits it will provide to the overall success of the business, will create a win-win mentality. This is essential to the wider success of the project and to the business.

Upgrading traditional working practices for a growing security business is a big but necessary step. Having a workforce that appreciates the need to introduce change and is involved in the rolling-out of that change, will ensure the change really does happen. That’s why effective workforce engagement software is a vital element of any ambitious business.