Magenta Security Services offers staff NVQ opportunity

09 Mar 10

Magenta Security Services is offering its staff the opportunity to be placed on a minimum NVQ Level 2 training course.

By Amy Rowe

The initiative has been rolled out across all of the company’s offices around the UK, and includes every member of staff as well as the management team.

Subjects up for study include customer services and security as well as management skills and information technology for those preparing to be instructed at NVQ Level 3. So far, 17 members of the firm's head office team have signed up for training courses, in addition to a number of security officers.

Magenta's managing director, Abbey Petkar, commented: “Staff development remains at the heart of our company’s success. Instead of just focusing our training on front-line security staff, we have included everyone across the business. The intention is to create a real depth of knowledge. We have also taken the time to provide courses most appropriate to each individual’s career and personal development needs.”

Charlie Gohil, an officer manager for Magenta who has signed up to the scheme, said: “The study opportunities provided by Magenta have been great. Our managers have spent the time identifying what skills would best suit our career growth, and have been really supportive about our chosen courses.”

Earlier this year, Magenta Security Services was highly commended in the Green Business Category of the Green Guardian Awards, a ceremony run by media group Newsquest.

Survey on security buying trends

Magenta Security Services' survey into client, prospect and contact security buying trends has revealed the level of spend on security guarding as a percentage of facilities management budgets.

The greatest number of respondents (42%) confirmed that their guarding costs represented a modest 10% or less of their overall facilities budget. However, a surprisingly large number (12%) confirmed that between 50% and 75% of their facilities budget goes into guarding, rendering this their single largest and most important piece of expenditure.

Commenting on the results, Abbey Petkar explained: “This is great news for the guarding industry. After the results of our last survey showed that 74% of businesses were most fearful of physical attacks on their business (51% theft and 23% vandalism), we were not surprised to see reasonable expenditure on guarding. The fact that over a third of our respondents spend more than 25% of their budgets on guarding is great news.”

Petkar went on to state: “Guarding represents the most effective means of protecting businesses against physical attack, and the fact that businesses are still investing in such services is a promising sign for the future of the industry.”

The data used to compile these statistics was collected by Magenta Security Services in the final quarter of 2009. Businesses surveyed included retailers, public authorities, recreational facilities and commercial buildings.