Reducing Turnover in the Services Sector: Lessons from the Security Industry

The security services industry has some of the highest level of turnover in any business, but it can be contained. By doing so, you’ll be able to pay higher wages, recruit top-quality personnel, and further boost the stability of your workforce. Service to clients will improve, and supervising will get easier. In this guide to reducing turnover, the author draws on lessons from the security industry to help senior executives, frontline supervisors and managers, and others boost their leadership abilities to improve employee retention. While the book focuses on the security industry for demonstration purposes, members of any services sector company can apply its lessons to make significant dents in money-losing turnover. The major theme running throughout the book is responsibility fueled by choice: Nobody is a victim of anybody or anything, and if we want to be the best leaders we can be, then we need to make that choice—and follow it up with hard work. Stop the revenue drain. Help first-line leaders—who play the pivotal role in reducing turnover—systematically improve their leadership skills by following the New Leadership model. Develop a retention culture in your company. All this and more in Reducing Turnover in the Services Sector.

Michael E. Goodboe operates his own senior-level coaching company, HR Pathways LLC. He retired from the security industry as senior vice president, corporate human resources for G4S Secure Solutions USA and head of training. During his thirty-year tenure with G4S, he moved up the ladder from manager of equality programs in human resources, to head the training group for more than nineteen years before being promoted to oversee corporate human resources and the G4S North America Training Institute.