• Don't bother to provide a written specification outlining your requirements when you go out to bid for a contract security guard agency. After all, they are supposed to be experts in their field and should know what to provide you without being told.

• Don't ask the contract security agency about the type of salary, training or benefits that they provide for their security officers. These questions are an internal matter and are none of your business.

• Always select the lowest bidder. Guard agencies are all the same - why not get the lowest price?

• Don't bother to teach the security officers anything about the way your business operates. After all, there is so much turnover in the guard business that it is a waste of time to teach the security officers anything.

• Don't provide written operating procedures for the security officers. If you must provide something in writing, be sure that it is outdated or that it conflicts directly with something that you verbally told the security officer.

• Don't provide a person at your company for the security officer to contact in case he encounters a problem after-hours. Let him solve the problem on his own; after all, that is what you are paying him for.

• Give the security officers plenty of non-security duties to perform. This is a good way to reduce employee "head count" at your company and make it look like you are doing the same work with less people. If possible, have the security officers perform duties that will degrade the officer in the eyes of your employees. Having the security officer deliver newspapers, wash company cars, or bring in lunches for employees are all good ways to show that the officer is a "gopher" rather than a security professional.

• If you have a sophisticated security system that must be monitored, always select security officers who have no technical background and are uncomfortable around computers. Don't train the officers on the proper use of the monitoring equipment. (It is fun to set off several alarms and then watch an inexperienced security officer try to figure out how to silence them.)

• Don't bother to monitor the performance of the contract security agency. You have better things to do on weekends than to come in and check up on the security officer.

• Don't bother to communicate regularly with the management of the contract security agency. What good will complaining do anyway? When things get too bad, fire the present security agency and go out to bid again.

 

(Sarcasm intended  - these are the things that you should NOT do if you want to successfully utilize contract security officers at your company.)