Chapter 3: Participate in Team Assignments

3.1 Read instructions for team assignment and identify own responsibilities

  • Assignment instructions serve as a reference guide for information security officers who must perform their tasks efficiently.
  • They represent the customer’s requirements and are part of the contract between the customer and the security company.

Assignment instructions may relate to:

  • Assignment objectives and timeframes
  • Back-up support
  • Client identification and information details
  • Communication equipment and procedures
  • Instructions from client, supervisor, or colleagues
  • Legislative requirements relating to work tasks

Assignment instructions typically contain:

  • Emergency contacts
  • Emergency procedures
  • Details of premises
  • Duty objectives
  • Reporting procedures
  • Shift patterns
  • Reporting for duty procedures

Assignment instructions regarding searching include:

  • When and where searches should be conducted.
  • What kind of search is to be conducted where, when, and how?
  • What the department’s or local business’s policies are concerning searching.
  • What to do and who to call if there are any issues.

3.2 Discuss individual and team responsibilities with team members to clarify work objectives and assist in resolving areas of conflict

  • For teams to be effective, roles and goals must be made clear.
  • If you are the team leader, you must be clear about what you want from your team members; otherwise, you cannot expect them to follow you.
  • Plan, policy, and role expectations are communicated by way of clarification.
  • Clarifying behavior is done to ensure everyone knows what to do and how to accomplish it and to direct and organize work activities.

Information helps in clarifying roles and work objectives by:

  • Clearly explaining the task.
  • Describing the purpose of the work.
  • Checking for understanding of the task.
  • Providing any necessary instructions on how to do the task.
  • Explaining priorities for different objectives or responsibilities.
  • Setting definite objectives and the deadline for significant tasks.

Dispute Resolution

  • After clarifying the individual roles and work objectives, if there is any dispute between team members, information helps resolve disputes.

Dispute resolution methods:

  1. Problem Solving / Collaboration / Confronting
  2. Compromising/Reconciling
  3. Withdrawing/Avoiding
  4. Forcing/Competing
  5. Smoothing/Accommodating

Dispute resolution procedure:

  • Be clear and trustworthy → Be sensitive
  • Seek clarification → Promote listening
  • Set expectations → Create an escalation procedure
  • Be reliable → Be timely

3.3 Encourage input of all team members to support decision-making that accounts for individual social and cultural differences

  • There are probably not many teams outside of security that have the same variety of viewpoints.
  • Deliberate decision-making based on various viewpoints and inputs is undoubtedly one of the many secrets to success.

Seven-step process to distribute decision-making to your team:

  • Stay with it
  • Outline your expectations
  • Establish criteria
  • Disseminate data
  • Promote the change
  • Offer assistance
  • Back up their choices

Encouraging team members in decision-making:

  • Suggestion Box
  • Security team Surveys

Ways that individual social and cultural differences may be expressed:

  • Emotional events and themes
  • The language of emotion
  • The cultural influence of emotional experience
  • Emotions and social behaviour
  • Emotional expressions and gestures

Basic principles of effective teamwork:

  • Constructive communication
  • Collaboration
  • Consciousness
  • Inclusion
  • Accountability
  • Justification with explanation

3.4 Maintain communication with team members during team assignment to share information and respond to instructions and requests for back-up assistance

  • Good communication skills are among the most valuable traits a security guard can have.
  • It is frequently necessary to communicate ideas and facts farther than possible through vocal means.
  • A security officer has a variety of instruments at their disposal to accomplish this, including a mobile phone, short message service, Morse code (which is less used today), and, of course, radio communications.

Communication procedures may include:

  • Abbreviations
  • Call codes
  • Call signs
  • Use of the phonetic alphabet
  • Written or verbal reporting

Basic Radio Communication Procedure:

  • Call → Call Signs
  • Code → Code Words

Communication skills required to interact with team members:

  • Active listening
  • Comprehension
  • Note-taking
  • Positive body language
  • Questioning
  • Reading accurately
  • Speaking clearly
  • Summarising
  • Writing

3.5 Assist team members to complete individual and team objectives within designated timeframes

  • Teamwork is the team members’ collective effort to accomplish a common objective.
  • It can happen anywhere when a group of people collaborate to complete a task inside a larger team framework.
  • Teamwork is essential for communication, interaction, and collaboration among team members, whether on a sports team or in an industrial group.

Important points a security guard needs to remember:

  • Keep in mind the value of effective teamwork.
  • Working towards a single objective is a sign of good teamwork.
  • Remember the four “C’s“: collaboration, clarity, creativity, and teamwork.
  • Teamwork is possible whether you operate in a group or alone.
  • Working in a team effectively completes tasks.

Why is good teamwork important?

  • It is abundant among coworkers.
  • It is a more efficient technique to complete the task (When people collaborate, more ideas are put to use).
  • A task is completed more quickly (More assistance typically allows for the completion of more tasks simultaneously).

How can we achieve teamwork?

  • Collaboration
  • Cooperation
  • Creativity
  • Clarity

The basic things that require teamwork:

  • Open communication to avoid conflicts.
  • Effective coordination to avoid confusion and the overstepping of boundaries.
  • Efficient cooperation to perform the tasks in a timely manner and produce the required results, especially in the form of workload sharing.
  • High levels of interdependence to maintain high levels of trust, risk-taking, and performance.

Skills required for teamwork:

  • Communication
  • Teamwork
  • Leadership
  • Organisation
  • Surveillance
  • Critical thinking
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