Think about the question posed in the title of this article:
Would you assign C-level and other high level positions to people who have minimal or even no experience or real expertise in them in order to save your company money?
Of course, you wouldn’t. Why? Because they are functions of the most critical elements of organizational success and they require high levels of expertise and knowledge.
If that’s the case, why would you think it’s ok to assign a critical function like responsibility for the safety and security of your people – employees and clients, to someone who has little and many times even no knowledge or expertise in the profession?
Well, it’s fairly simple – to save money! You weigh the risk of something actually happening with the cost of preventing what you consider to be something that will never happen and, in the end, because you’ve never really had a problem you surmise that you never will and there’s your justification.
The solution? Assign it to someone who has been hired to do other things like “facilities management” or “human resources”, being the two most common, people with extremely minimal or no knowledge of what it takes to keep people secure.
Can you get away with this? Absolutely, and you likely have been for years. Is it the path that contributes most to the bottom line? Absolutely. But if, or when, something happens, this CHOSEN path will contribute heavily to loss of life, physical injury, reputational loss and exposure to liability.
IT’S SIMPLE AND COST EFFECTIVE TO CORRECT THIS IF YOU HAVE THE RIGHT RESOURCES.
Just doing something that appears to go beyond what is necessary and/or expected weighs heavily in you favor. It’s basically insurance – just in case however, it also goes miles with employees and clients to know that you care for them far more than any other companies they can work for or do business with.
Truly keeping your employees and clients secure by providing resources becomes one of the best “benefits” you can give them.