Expanded Career Options Help with Officer Retention
But parking operations is just one facet of Sheets’ job. He has also revamped LifeBridge’s security officer selection and training processes. Now, officers must be high school graduates and pass the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety’s (IAHSS) 40-hour basic security training course. Those individuals wanting to be supervisors are required to have additional training or a background in law enforcement, the military or corrections.
Once an officer has been recruited and trained, however, there must be an incentive for him or her to stay at the institution. Otherwise, the campus’ personnel investment is wasted. That’s where salary enhancements come into play. “We’ve looked at the compensation levels and compared healthcare [officers] to healthcare [officers] as opposed to just security in our region,” says Sheets. This was done because the competency level required of hospital security officers is much greater than in many other fields, such as corporate security.
Another way Sheets motivated his officers was by expanding their career options to include investigations, training and management. Originally, the security department had only three levels, but now it has eight.
This was no small achievement, especially considering his department was forced to reduce its staff due to the down economy. But according to Sinai Hospital’s Vice President of Facilities Lionel Weeks, Sheets turned this problem into an opportunity. “Roger has been able to take downsizing and turn it into job enrichment and job enhancement for his entire department.”
Sheets has maintained his department’s high level of performance by broadening the scope of job responsibilities for many team members. He believes this will lead to officer career growth in the future. “When things get better, they’ll have a stronger skill set and sense of managing issues during tough times.”
To motivate officers even more, Sheets created an employee of the month and employee of the year program. This move was so successful that in 2007, a Sinai security officer received the national IAHSS award for outstanding service.
