Protecting the protectors   
In his own consulting experience over the years, Parker says organizations have failed to significantly address how to protect their employees, particularly those who are in the security side of business, in terms of their training and the supply of equipment.
   
“No one has thought about what to do to protect the people that turn up to protect you.”   
   
On a daily basis private sector security guards are threatened, shoved, pushed and spat on while dealing with calls regarding situations, such as shoplifting.
   
“What you don’t know is the shoplifter is stealing to feed a drug habit,” he says.  “So already their mental ability to maintain reasonableness is already going over the edge.”
   
“Once you find yourself actually in the scenario … you cannot turn around and walk away from it. It is often more dangerous to turn around and walk away simply because the other person will not let you.”
   
In Ontario, on a nearly daily basis security guards have to deal with either finding knives and firearms on people or having these weapons pulled on them when making an arrest, he says. 
   
In hospitals, they are the ones who are called in to control mental health patients or people who have drug problems who can’t be reasoned with, Parker explains.
   
As well, those who work at organizations that have methadone exchange clinics for drug patients are also at risk of being stabbed with a needle and possibly becoming infected.
   
When it comes to workplace violence issues, “we have to look away from the traditional HR [idea that] it’s just name-calling” because while bullying is a serious issue, security guards deal with physical violence, people who are HIV- and hepatitis-positive, people who fall under the Mental Health Act and people who have “significant social problems,” he says.
   
Moreover, there are many employers in the private security industry who hesitate to provide their workers with personal protection equipment because the industry has an “identity crisis” over whether security guards act like the police or observe and report, Robertson says.
   
A security manager within an organization might want his or her employees to be equipped, better trained and have a “more straightforward mandate to go and exercise their lawful authority to get control of a situation, in order to protect people,” he explains.
   
However, someone above the manager may veto these things because while they want the security guards to keep everyone safe, they want them to do so without using force.
          
“What’s fallacious about that is the belief by anyone that you can, through a policy edict, pre-determine which security guards are going to be exposed to workplace violence and which ones aren’t.”
   
This “identity crisis” is one reason why some security guards receive no or little “use of force” training, while others receive a lot, Robertson says.
   
Another reason is the cost of training, particularly in the contract security guard industry, which has a significantly high turnover rate and the contracts that clients sign tend to have low margins, he explains.
   
“Contract guard companies just often find that they can’t afford or feel that they can’t afford to spend a lot of time on use of force training.”   
   
Bonsu says most of the complaints he receives from security guards are that they weren’t trained properly.
   
“We are preaching this to the employer whose only concern is to make profit.”