License the SIA for Close Protection Officer - Outline Example

AN OUTLINE OF THE RESEARCH PROPOSAL Introduction A Close Protection Officer or Operative (CPO) is a well-trained and skilled individual who has been hired by a person in need of personal protection for example; politicians, royal families and celebrities. To become a close protection officer one needs to be licensed by the SIA (Security Industry Authority). This research intends to focus on the area of Protective Security (PS) and will investigate on whether there is a need for CPO’s to undergo a complete fitness test as a prerequisite for the award of SIA front line operative license. The outcomes of such a research project will be greatly beneficial to both the industry and my higher education studies. The industry will have a basis for decision making with regards to the importance of including a compulsory fitness test for their employees versus cost of the actual implementation of such a move. I also gain the skills of designing and implementing a good research project which is one of the objectives of higher education studies. Literature Review The main objective of SIA is to award licenses to persons interested in becoming CPO’s only after meeting the requirements which include undergoing CPO training and having a clean criminal record among other requirements. The idea was to tame the Protective Security Industry which had persons with criminal records and associated with drug abuse operating as CPO’s. This would have then resulted in better performance and increased effectiveness. But even with this regulatory body in place the effectiveness of CPO’s hasn’t improved as much. In a recent study, 53% of the respondents believed that the CPO’s operational effectiveness had actually improved under SIA standards. The remaining 47% felt that SIA had done little in an effort to improve the operational effectiveness and CPO standards. This finding actually suggested that almost half of the respondents felt that SIA had not done much to improve the operational effectiveness of CPO’s (Payton 1997). The same study revealed that, SIA faces a problem of having many already operational CPO’s being unlicensed and have failed to meet the minimum requirements established by the government’s Act of 2001 in terms of attainment of standards and relevant training necessary for operating in the Private Security Industry. In order to improve CPO’s effectiveness then a critical and much broader multidimensional approach in the evaluation of the problem needs to be adopted. One of the avenues could then be to evaluate the need for fitness tests for all CPO’s and its impact on CPO’s effectiveness. Many CPO training programs emphasize on the theoretical aspect of training and give little focus to the physical aspects (physical tests). For instance security HR (2010), as part of the requirements for SIA license award, a candidate is required to attend SIA training which is classroom based focusing on the basic job training and the law in Wales and England as it relates to CPO’s. It then goes without saying that a study focusing on the impact of having physically fit CPO’s would be of great value to the industry as a whole. Many firms offering training for CPO’s are beginning to recognize the need for physical fitness of CPO’s especially those working in highly risky and dangerous environments. They are incorporating into their training programs certain training expertise aimed at equipping CPO’s with abilities to protect their clients and themselves. For instance Hunsicker (2010), gives a detailed training program for CPO’s that includes Close Combat Levels of Force, The Vital Targets in Combat, The Principles of Attack, Defensive Techniques, and Transition Techniques. All these are physical and require a high degree of fitness. According to Platinum Group (1999), one of their requirements for a CPO is to be physically fit. This means that there is an increasing awareness of the need for physically fit CPO’s and many more firms are establishing and implementing programs in this regard. It is then likely that more firms would favour the incorporation of fitness tests into SIA requirements in order to acquire SIA license than those against. Methods The main aim of this research study is to assess whether there is need for incorporating a compulsory fitness test for C PO’s as part of the prerequisites for the award of a SIA Front Line Operative License. This research has got three distinct and critically important objectives. They include: To investigate the effect or impact of physical fitness on the operational effectiveness of CPO’s in terms of client satisfaction. To investigate whether the security firm has any physical fitness program. To investigate whether the presence or absence of physical fitness has had any adverse effect on CPO’s work. Approach This research study will adopt a quantitative approach rather than a qualitative approach. The quantitative approach aims at giving an explanation and basically answers the question why? On the other hand the qualitative approach seeks to understand a certain scenario and will answer the question how? The basis of the quantitative method is that, it is possible to measure, quantify and numerically express social phenomena. This information is then analyzed using statistical methods (Mamia 2010). The kind of information sought after in this research study is highly quantitative in nature. The first objective of this study is to assess the effect of physical fitness on CPO’s operational effectiveness in terms of client satisfaction. This would require clients of security firm to fill in a questionnaire indicating their level of satisfaction on a one to five scale with five being very satisfied and one not satisfied. Then the client is also given options to state why he or she is not satisfied incase she or he is not. These options include; lateness, physical fitness problems, poor communication skills, substance abuse, and any other complaint. As is evident the kind of information obtained here is quantitative rather than qualitative. Research Sample The research study targets five local Protective security firms. It will mainly target the management of the protective security firms (Human resource manager), the clients and the CPO’s. Each of these respondents has a particular kind of information being looked for. The client will give pertinent information in terms of satisfaction with service and also indicate probable reasons for low satisfaction with service. The CPO’s will give information relating to any difficulty incurred at work and whether its related to physical fitness while the human resource manager will give information regarding the presence or absence of physical training programs within the firm, and also give the research study access to their clients after assurance of confidentiality of information and how they stand to gain from the study. The sampling method going to be used in this research study is non-probability purposive sampling method. This is because our respondents are predetermined and they are not random as is the case in probability sampling. The study targets CPO’s, Protective security firms and their clients. With purposive sampling, the sampling is done with a particular purpose in mind and with specific predefined groups in mind (Research Methods knowledge Base 2006). Data Collection The research study intends to use two forms of data collection, the interview and the questionnaire. These two methods will yield data that is critical in meeting the objectives of the study. Questionnaires will be administered to the CPO’s and clients. The clients will basically indicate their level of service satisfaction evaluated on a range of one to five with one being least satisfaction and five being most satisfaction. Incase of dissatisfaction, they (clients) are given a list of options to choose from as the reasons for dissatisfaction with physical fitness associated problems being one of them. The CPO’s will also be administered with questionnaires. They will be required to indicate the problems faced while at work, and also indicate whether any of these problems is related to physical fitness problems. They will also be given room to indicate anything that they think will be of value and worth noting incase there are future efforts to try and improve their effectiveness while at work. The human resource managers on the other hand will be granted interviews. A semi-structured form of interview will be used. The idea in this case is to get the human resource manager to expand on his or her answers. The interview will seek find out whether the firms have physical training programs, how they evaluate for the effectiveness of the programs. They will also be interviewed on any incidences reported by either client or CPO while at work and how many relate to physical fitness problems. This may require document analysis for supplementary data. The questionnaire and the interview are the most appropriate forms of data collection because it is easier to obtain the data and in a much faster way especially when compared to methods like observation which may be too time consuming. Data Analysis The data will be analyzed for percentage of clients satisfied with service versus what percentage expressed dissatisfaction. The client’s data will also be analyzed for the specific percentage of dissatisfaction attributable to physical fitness related problems and also the percentage attributable to other complaints and a comparison made. Again a comparison of client satisfaction will be made between clients with physically fit CPO’s and those deemed not physically fit. The data that will be collected from the CPO’s will be analyzed for the percentage of problems at work attributable to physical fitness problems and a comparison made with that attributable to nonphysical fitness problems. The feedback that will be collected from the CPO’s will also be used to make certain useful and relevant recommendations that can be adopted and implemented not just by the participating firms but nationally. The data from human resource managers will be used to judge the CPO’s for fitness based on the presence or absence of a fitness program. The document analysis will also contribute to data used to establish incidences reported while at work by CPO’s and a percentage attributable to fitness problems determined. References Fraser, P., 2009. An evaluation of the impact of the security industry authority on the operational effectiveness of close protection operatives, Journal of Crowd Safety and Security Management, Available at: http://www.platinumops.com/bodyguard-information.php Hunsicker, A., 2010. Advanced skills in executive protection.Florida: Universal publishers. Platinum Group Limited, 2002. C.P.O Information [online] Available at: http://www.platinumops.com/bodyguard-information.php Research Methods Knowledge base, 2006. Nonprobability sampling [online] (updated on 20 October 2006) retrieved from http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/sampnon.php Security HR, 2010. SIA license requirements. Retrieved from http://www.securityhr.co.uk/sia-licence-requirements.html [Accessed 11 December 2011]. Read More