Why Increasing Situational Awareness for Staff is Important

2 August 2021

Every organisation should be encouraging the development of situational awareness for staff. The benefit of increased situational awareness is significant enough to better protect the staff themselves, the assets of the organisation, and the location. Training for organisations can add benefit across any department, from topics such as finance to HR, so security training should be no different.

Situational awareness training can take many forms. However, the aim of the training should be the same, to increase a persons capability of being aware of their surroundings, and different factors within that environment. A good explanation of situational awareness is your mental picture of what is going on around you. It involves picking up information and cues from the environment, putting those pieces of information together so you can develop a good idea of what is going on, and then using it to predict what might happen next.

Why we need to be more situationally aware

Personal Safety

First and foremost, situational awareness training can greatly improve personal safety. By being more aware of our surroundings, then we can reduce the risk of placing our selves in danger, or at the same time, removing ourselves from danger. Being aware of persons that want to cause us harm, or steal our belongings is much needed these days. This includes being at work or during our social time. Unfortunately, we can’t remain in safe environments continually.

Increase in Crime

It is common knowledge that crime is on the rise. A steep increase in offences has been recorded from 2013 to 2020 by the Office of National Statistics, except for a recent decrease which is potentially due to COVID and the lockdown. Criminal activity continues to affect many of us, especially those crimes against a person. Crimes against a person could include theft, verbal abuse, physical abuse, and even terrorist related incidents. It helps for people to make themselves aware on a larger scale by keeping up to date with the news and media.

Safer Workplaces

In this day and age, we all need to work together to help improve security. The Police and government encourage us to observe and report any suspicious behaviour. We should also do this on a working level, to help identify and report on suspicious activity in our office and building locations. We should never take the view of ‘well that’s someone else’s problem’. Situational awareness training can assist organisations in better protecting their staff, and in turn protecting their organisations and workplaces.

How can situational awareness training be delivered

Situational Awareness E-learning

Organisations can sometimes find it difficult to get their staff together in one place and at one time. We understand this and so believe that e-learning is an excellent delivery method for many courses, including situational awareness. E-learning allows staff to undertake the training in their own time and with less time constraints. Full tracking of learner progress can also be provided, taking the strain and responsibility away from the organisation. E-learning can be knowledgeable, engaging, and as interactive as you want it to be.

Face to Face Training

One of the most beneficial delivery methods is face to face training. This is the best way for an instructor or tutor to deliver their content. It also encourages the use of role play and personal experiences. If using face to face delivery, courses can either be delivered in full days, half days, or even in bitesize sessions. Since COVID, there has been a shift away from face to face classes. However, face to face delivery should always be a top consideration for training your staff.

Virtual Training

Virtual training can be provided in circumstances whereby it is not safe to, or difficult to get learners together. Using technology such as Zoom, Teams and so forth, virtual training can be a great substitute for face to face courses. Technology has improved greatly, and this includes fast internet connections. For virtual courses, we use our virtual classroom studio which allows for a professional approach to virtual training. One of the benefits of virtual training is that a large number of learners can be enrolled without the logistics headache. It is also valuable for other types of learning and communication within an organisation.

Summary

Increasing situational awareness in your staff has many benefits. Increasing their own safety, creating a better security culture in the organisation, and generally just improving how and what to take in around them. Whether operating as a high risk cash business or sitting in an office all day, increased situational awareness has a place in any environment or workplace. We believe the value of this type of training and similar security training should never be underestimated.