How is your security team shaping up on-site?
Consistent, reliable guard performance tells your clients they’re in capable hands. But if you’re not actively tracking how your team is doing, issues can go unnoticed until they turn into complaints, missed renewals, or lost business.
Without a clear system for measuring and improving performance, it’s impossible to know who’s ready for more responsibility and who needs extra support.
Join us to learn how to measure and improve the performance of your security team so your company can meet client expectations and maintain positive, long-term contracts.
Key Traits of High-Performing Security Guards
Here’s what strong performance looks like in security guards:
- Reliability: Guards should know the importance of arriving before their shift and be in good physical and mental shape to follow their assigned schedules.
An unreliable guard may show up late, fail to bring the proper equipment or uniform, leave early, or neglect responsibilities. This creates risk for the client and liability for the company.
- Situational Awareness: Strong guards notice subtle changes in behavior and remain attuned to their surroundings. They can recognize when something appears out of place, such as an unattended item, a shift in crowd behavior, a suspicious individual, or a vehicle parked where it shouldn’t be.
Even after long shifts or during routine patrols, a guard should remain alert, engaged, and capable of identifying early warning signs of potential security issues.
- Communication: When dealing with members of the public, resolving conflicts, de-escalating tense situations, or liaising with emergency services, security guards must be fully aware of how their communication can influence the outcome.
Inadequate communication skills may present as unclear radio transmissions, disorganized or incomplete reports, or unprofessional language during interactions. These lapses can make guards appear unprofessional and may negatively affect both the client’s trust and your company’s reputation.
- Protocol Adherence: Quality guards follow post orders, comply with site-specific policies, and respond appropriately in emergencies. When guards are knowledgeable of different protocols and prepared to follow them closely, a security company can ensure consistency in service delivery and show clients their personnel are in control in any situation.
The strongest guards will understand not only what is expected of them in routine operations, but also how to react when circumstances deviate from the norm.
- Reporting and Documentation: When writing incident reports and daily activity logs, security guards should demonstrate proper grammar and punctuation. Otherwise, reports may be confusing, incomplete, or difficult for clients and supervisors to interpret.
Poorly written documentation can also raise concerns about credibility and accuracy, especially in cases where reports are reviewed by law enforcement, legal teams, or regulatory bodies.
- Effective Incident Response: Guards are expected to make decisions quickly and respond with confidence, even under pressure. Their ability to assess a situation, choose an appropriate course of action, and execute it efficiently is a defining trait of high performance.
A guard who hesitates, acts outside protocol, or misjudges a situation can unintentionally escalate risk or delay critical intervention.
While a security guard may come from any background or level of experience, these traits define those who consistently deliver top-tier performance and uphold the standards your company promises to clients.
How to Measure Guard Performance
Some traits, such as punctuality and attentiveness, can be easy to spot in high-performing guards. However, truly effective performance measurement should incorporate quantitative and qualitative metrics to capture the full picture of each guard’s capabilities and value to a security company’s operations.
Quantitative Metrics
These metrics are objective and ideal for establishing performance benchmarks across your team.
- Completion of Required Training
Regularly audit your training records to confirm guards are up to date with:
- State-mandated certifications
- Site-specific training modules
- Ongoing refresher courses
- Quiz and Exam Scores
After training sessions, use short assessments to measure knowledge retention. Scores can help identify who may need follow-up coaching or additional training.
Team leaders can be equipped with quick-reference materials to quiz guards during briefings or shift changes, and these scores can be used to identify gaps in knowledge for each guard.
- Client Satisfaction and Retention Metrics
Tracking client-related performance metrics helps you identify guards who consistently meet expectations and those who may need retraining or reassignment.
For instance, companies may assess the frequency of client requests for guard reassignment. If clients repeatedly ask to replace specific guards, this may signal issues relating to their professionalism and communication, for instance. Of course, further qualitative investigation is needed to pinpoint the exact cause of guard reassignment requests.
Qualitative Metrics
These metrics dig deeper into how guards perform in everyday situations, showing strengths and weaknesses that numbers alone might miss.
- Supervisor Reviews
Set up regular check-ins where supervisors fill out standardized evaluation forms. We recommend:
- Using rating scales (e.g., 1 to 5) for each category to quantify performance.
- Including simple yes/no checklists for specific tasks (e.g., “Did the guard complete all patrol rounds?”).
- Providing space for supervisors to add comments on strengths, concerns, or examples of behavior.
- Incident Outcomes
After any incident, have supervisors or managers review the guard’s report to check if the guard followed the correct steps and reported everything clearly and on time.
We suggest keeping a record of how many incidents are resolved without escalation and how often guards stick to protocols.
- Feedback From Clients
Collect feedback from clients through short surveys, quick phone or email check-ins, or during site meetings. Make sure all feedback is logged and categorized as either positive, neutral, or negative.
Repeated complaints or praise from different sources tell you a lot about how a guard fits in.
Using quantitative and qualitative data gives you a more accurate picture of performance and helps guide decisions around promotions, retraining, or reassignment.
Common Causes of Low Guard Performance
Underperformance is rarely the result of a single issue. It often stems from a combination of individual and situational factors, including:
- Inadequate Training: When guards aren’t adequately trained, their confidence drops, which affects how they respond to different situations. Gaps in training can lead to protocols being missed or best practices ignored. A failure to train guards adequately can also lower retention rates for security companies, leading to even more disruptions in service quality.
- Unclear Expectations or Post Orders: If performance standards and post responsibilities are not clearly communicated, guards may struggle to prioritize tasks or make appropriate decisions. Vague or outdated post orders can lead to inconsistent practices and avoidable incidents.
- Poor Supervision and Lack of Feedback: A lack of regular oversight can contribute to disengagement and reduced accountability. Without structured evaluations and follow-up, performance issues may go unnoticed or unaddressed.
- Low Morale and Burnout: Guards working in high-stress environments or without recognition may experience fatigue, which can lead to reduced attention and slower response times. Ensuring adequate breaks and fair scheduling for all guards, along with providing appropriate support resources, can help to fix morale.
Training as a Tool for Performance Improvement
If performance is lacking across some guards or teams, training can be implemented to target specific weaknesses, reinforce key protocols, and build confidence in high-pressure situations.
For example, recurring issues with report writing might call for a focused refresher on documentation standards, while struggles with conflict resolution or de-escalation could be addressed through situational judgment or role-play exercises.
In cases where knowledge gaps and low performance are widespread, companies may benefit most from assigning mandatory training for specific topics, to keep all guards up to standard.
Framing training as a means for support, rather than to punish guards, will become a key contributor to raising quality and accountability among personnel. When guards see training as an opportunity to improve their skills, they’re more likely to engage in it and try to apply what they learn when performing their duties.
Key targeted training areas your company may focus on can include:
- Professionalism: Public Relations, Courtroom Demeanor
- Safety Awareness: Officer Safety, Evacuation Procedures
- Legal Understanding: Liability & Legal Aspects, Powers to Arrest
- Communication: Communication and Its Significance, Radio Procedures
Recognizing and Rewarding High Performance
Consistently strong performance, whether through experience or as a result of training, deserves recognition.
Your company must acknowledge high-performing security guards, as this can reinforce the positive behavior and help to set a clear standard for the rest of the team.
Recognition can come in the form of:
- Verbal or written commendations from supervisors
- Employee of the Month or similar recognition programs
- Performance-based bonuses or incentives, such as gift cards or extra time off
- Opportunities for advancement or specialized assignments
- Public acknowledgment during team meetings or company-wide communications
In some programs, such as our tiered academy training system, physical pins are awarded upon successful completion of designated training levels.
These pins serve as visible recognition of a guard’s commitment to their professional development and are a tangible reminder of their growth.
Whatever form of regulation your company chooses, ensure that it is specific and tied directly to observable performance, such as excellent incident response, outstanding customer service, or consistently accurate reporting. Generic praise carries less weight and guards may feel it’s insincere or unearned, making them less motivated by it.
Improve Your Security Guard Performance With Online Training
Security companies are encouraged to regularly observe and measure guard performance using both quantitative and qualitative metrics.
After reviewing your guards’ performance, if you notice issues such as knowledge gaps or inconsistent protocol adherence, one of the first actions should be implementing targeted training.
Often, training can be inconvenient, which may explain why it hasn’t been prioritized before.
However, with online training through our Guard Training platform, guards can refresh their knowledge and gain new skills anytime and anywhere. Our engaging training materials are designed to keep guards motivated and help them apply what they learn on the job, helping your company improve overall performance.
