The 2023 fourth quarter edition of
The Californian: The Quarterly Newsletter of CALSAGA is now available!
Remembering Roy Rahn
Kate Wallace, Association Manager
Longtime CALSAGA supporter Roy Rahn passed away in May. During his time with the association Roy served as Board Member, President and finally as Executive Director. Roy retired from the United States Naval Reserve as Commander and served eleven years in law enforcement. Roy was a recipient of CALSAGA’s highest honor, the Al Howenstein Lifetime Achievement Award. ASIS International awarded Roy with the Vincent L. Ruffolo Legislative Advocate Memorial Award in 2017 for his efforts to improve the private security profession. Roy is survived by his wife of many years Laurie, five children and grandchildren. He will be missed by many. “We appreciate Roy’s many years of service to CALSAGA and to the industry,” said CALSAGA President David Chandler. “He was a friend to a lot of people, and he was a gentleman to everyone.”
From left: CALSAGA President David Chandler, Roy Rahn, Legal Advisor Barry Bradley and Treasurer Mark Miller in 2017
Unlocking a Competitive Advantage
Jordan Wallach, Belfry Software, Associate Member
Standing out in the security guard industry requires strategy and follow-through. Here are areas we’ve found that companies often prioritize, but then fall short:
When operational fires arise, client relationships are the first to fall by the wayside. Our recent survey found that despite being part of their initial job description, Operations Managers spend less than 10% of their time in front of clients. They’re simply spending too much time tracking down personnel or managing a patchwork of tools.
Here, the power of modern technology solutions becomes evident. First, this could halve the time spent that Operations Managers spend scheduling and managing reports – creating space to focus on strategic work and client relationships. But an intelligent system also quantifies the value of your services – locking in renewals and assisting in difficult contract negotiations.
It’s also critical to empower your team. While companies invest heavily in training hours, time & money is wasted when officers are equipped with outdated tools. Providing user-friendly technology that feels just like the tech they use at home means happier employees and less time spent troubleshooting.
This is where Belfry fits in. Our industry-leading software is designed only for security guard services businesses – allowing your team to focus on what makes your company unique: strong client relationships and strategic thinking. With Belfry, it’s about more than just software; it’s about helping you make your mark in the competitive security landscape. Let us help unlock your company’s true potential.
Jordan Wallach is the Co-Founder and CEO of Belfry, the modern operating system for security guard services companies and a CALSAGA Member. Prior to founding Belfry, Jordan was a consultant at McKinsey & Company and a Product Manager at Microsoft, building software used by millions of people worldwide. He has a bachelor’s degree in Data Science from Stanford University.
TAKING CONTROL OF THE SITUATION:
USE CASE FOR BODY-WORN CAMERAS AND VIDEO MANAGEMENT
Jojo Tran, Telepath Corporation, CALSAGA Associate Member
Safety and accountability are critical elements of an effective workplace environment. Whether teaching in a classroom or managing security at a healthcare, every employee wants to feel safe and prepared in an emergency situation.
The body-worn camera makes this desire a reality. With devices now with full HD shift recording in 1080p, pre/post recording capabilities, and multiple ways to connect via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, these devices provide footage of events as they occur.
AN ESSENTIAL TECHNOLOGY FOR SAFE SCHOOLS
Every day, school safety professionals face challenges and threats daily as they keep their communities safe.
Providing a real-time perspective during critical incidents when any action is required to protect students, teachers, or themselves is more important than ever. Body-worn cameras capture video and audio, providing accurate and disputable proof of incidents that occur on the grounds while strengthening the trust of the student body and the surrounding community.
Security process and share evidence with school administrators and local law enforcement.
Complying with policies and procedures on how footage should be stored, accessed, and viewed is a key to protecting students, right to privacy. Using video management with the body-worn camera and digital evidence management solutions enables you to do just that.
AN ESSENTIAL TECHNOLOGY FOR SAFER HEALTHCARE OPERATIONS
Security threats and acts of workplace violence in the healthcare industry are on the rise.
This not only undermines the safety of healthcare workers and their quality of patient care, but also places greater demand on healthcare security professionals. Equipping healthcare security with the tools they need to protect others and themselves is a vital part in mitigating workplace violence and creating a safer environment for healthcare operations.
Securely process and share evidence with local law enforcement.
Adherence to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) laws and local privacy regulations dictating how footage should be accessed and viewed is key to safeguarding patients’ health information and right to privacy. Managing your videos and digital evidence solutions enables you to prepare, process, and share high-quality video evidence from your suite of body-worn cameras in a way that meets privacy regulations.
AN ESSENTIAL TECHNOLOGY FOR PROFESSIONAL SECURITY OPERATIONS
Workplace violence is rising, bringing more significant demands for security professionals.
Often on the first line in corporate offices, retail outlets, hospitals, and schools, they are responding to increased incidents of aggression. Those who don’t feel safe at work are more likely to leave the company, utilize employer health care services at a higher rate, or bring legal insurance claims against their employer when a safety incident occurs. Providing a security professional’s perspective of an incident when they must use force to protect themselves or the property, they are responsible for is more critical than ever.
Confidently process and share evidence with local law enforcement
Video footage from body-worn cameras can be securely offloaded to video manager systems. It can be accessed by authorized personnel by securely logging in from any computer or tablet connected to a network. It also provides capabilities to links for secure sharing with external agencies for seamless collaboration.
Body-worn cameras are designed for those security professionals who may encounter threats of violence. These devices can feature rugged exteriors, full shift recording, and provide extended footage of events as they occur, allowing immediate response and providing indisputable evidence.
JoJo Tran is Chief Executive Officer of Telepath Corporation. Tran joined Telepath in 1990 and became CEO in September 2010. Previously, he headed several business units at Telepath, including mission critical infrastructure, customer service, sales and mobile team. Mr. Tran’s vision is to be the industry’s premier sales, service and program management company. Customers and partners will see Telepath as an integral to their success. Telepath will anticipate their needs and deliver on every commitment. People will be proud to work at Telepath. Telepath will create opportunities to achieve the extraordinary and will reward their success.
The Secure 2.0 Act of 2022
Nina De Forge, TEAM Software by WorkWave, CALSAGA Network Partner
In a move that could have a huge impact on employee morale, retention and recruitment, President Joseph R. Biden signed the Secure 2.0 Act of 2022 into law to change the tax rules that apply to employer-provided retirement.
This new legislation is designed to encourage workers to save more for their future retirement and improve retirement savings opportunities. Some of the provisions already took effect on Jan. 1, 2023, while others take effect at the beginning of next year and into 2025. In total, there are 92 retirement-saving provisions, which include the following key benefits:
- Automatic enrollment, automatic escalation
- Catch-up contribution increases
- Optional Roth treatment of employer contributions
- Expanded eligibility for long-term, part-time employees
- Treatment of student loan payments for matching contributions
- Emergency savings accounts linked to retirement plans
- Saver’s match, immediate incentives for participation
- Expanded credit for retirement plan administrative costs
The Secure Act 2.0 also requires that employers make significant adjustments for their workers, which may need extensive IRS and DOL guidance. Additional IRS guidance is expected in late August or early September, based on findings from the open comment period.
Ensuring that staffers are informed of all the changes and know what actions are required of them will most likely require assistance from third-party administrators, pre-approved sponsor plan documents and updates to policies and administrative systems.
Increasing Administrative Responsibilities
Because of the retirement plan reform, business owners may have to take on heavier administrative burdens that could require more time and energy in terms of human resource departments.
Employers can also expect increased responsibilities in terms of keeping employee data up to date, as well as providing a series of communications updating payroll providers and third-party plan administrators.
Consult With Plan Administrators
Even though a significant number of the SECURE 2.0 Act provisions will take some time before they’re actually effective, as a business owner, there’s a few steps that you can take to make sure you’re prepared.
Businesses can begin to sponsor an employee retirement savings plan now, as opposed to waiting. The current labor market is particularly competitive in a number of areas – and the same is true in regards to financial advice or tax services. Also, applying available tax credits can offset some start-up costs, which makes this a great time to take action.
Educate Your Workforce
For business owners, a more robust retirement plan program will mean creating new educational resources or making significant updates to the learning tools already available to employees. Training may be necessary for companies who will have to comply with new regulations, since technology is available to help equip workers with the tools that they need to take advantage of newly available tax benefits.
Naturally, it may also be necessary to educate staffers on the changes to the retirement system as a whole. Participants and beneficiaries may wish to update their estate plans to account for differences in the amount and timing of retirement plan distributions.
Speak to Your Software Provider
If you use an integrated workforce management or ERP system to manage your human resources department, benefits and payroll activities, know that there is a plan in place for feature enhancements to cover new regulation requirements, such as automatic enrollment.
Learn more about available human resource tools by visiting teamsoftware.com or click the following link to set up a demo: Learn More.
Nina has 20 years of experience developing, managing and implementing applications with a focus on tax filing, payroll, benefits administration, and human capital. For the past 5 years, she has been working as a product owner at TEAM Software by WorkWave, where she combines her depth of knowledge and collaborative style with like minded product innovators.
The Value of Data, Analysis and Exception-Based Reporting
Josh Petro, TEAM Software by WorkWave, CALSAGA Network Partner
Security businesses are often faced with this common data challenge: they possess a wealth of information but struggle to extract meaningful insights from it. Without that meaning, data is simply a collection of numbers on a page, leaving decision makers without concrete evidence, trends or patterns to help inform their next steps forward.
It’s important to be able to leverage the power of reporting and data analysis to transform raw information into actionable knowledge that provides business value. But doing so is easier said than done – especially when you’re already stretched thin by the demands of your business.
To help, I’m sharing key approaches to data management and analysis every security company should consider when striving to become more data-driven.
Exception-based reporting: Focusing attention and taking action
What does it mean to monitor by exception? Simply this: instead of closely monitoring every aspect of a process or operation, you set parameters or rules to identify and flag anomalies, irregularities, or significant deviations from expected outcomes. Instead of always monitoring everything and all at once, exception-based reporting operates in the background of your system, offering insights when issues need to be addressed.
In the security industry, a key exception you might experience is a missed shift or no-show by a guard. In this example, an exception-based monitoring system can compare scheduled shifts with actual attendance records or clock-in data. That way, if an expected timekeeping activity is not recorded within a specific time frame, the system will trigger an alert or notification, highlighting the exception. Think of it like this: you don’t need to see a report or receive a notification every time someone clocks in – that’s business as usual. You want to know when something isn’t going to plan so you can fix it before it becomes an issue.
This kind of reporting is key in helping security companies proactively manage their workforce, speed up incident response, minimize disruptions and maintain a high level of service delivery.
Data analysis: Extracting value from big data
The words “big data” are often used to describe a situation when organizations have access to vast amounts of information. When you’re dealing with large volumes of data, it’s especially important to have effective strategies in place to analyze and gain meaningful information from it.
One approach to accomplishing this is through the methodology of tiered reporting. Tiered reporting provides a structured approach to organizing data by using tiers. This allows for easy access and retrieval of specific data sets, making it simpler to identify relevant information for analysis. Tiered reporting also enables businesses to create user-specific reports tailored to the needs of different individuals and departments, based on the tiers of information that matter to them. This helps ensure the right people are able to make informed decisions based on their specific roles and needs.
Tiered reporting supports an exception-based approach, as businesses can establish KPIs – key performance indicators that can serve as benchmarks for your business performance – for each tier. When tracking these KPIs against predefined metrics, you can enhance your performance monitoring and identify areas for improvement.
Visualizing data with dashboards and business intelligence
Effective data visualization is essential for understanding complex information at a glance.
Dashboards provide an intuitive and user-friendly interface to monitor KPIs, trends and outliers. Through customizable visual representations – like charts and graphs – different stakeholders can gain insights into the health of their department or the business as a whole. It’s also important to be able to automate the sharing of these enterprise data reports with users on a schedule. That way, stakeholders can monitor data on a consistent cadence, increasing their ability to spot variances and make adjustments when needed.
Even within the same industry, though, every security business is unique. As you approach data visualization, ensure the tools you are using to do it can accommodate customized reports and analysis models based on your specific needs. In some cases, this may mean working with a tool with a separate business intelligence module that helps you look at your data in the way you want to look at it – and in a way that tells a clear story.
The future of data analysis and predictive analytics
As technology continues to evolve, the field of data analysis is on the brink of even more advancements. Predictive technologies are gaining momentum, with automation and artificial intelligence playing a significant role in how companies will be looking at – and interpreting – their data.
Even with these advancements, every security company needs an integrated workforce management solution that can first gather and record your operational and back-office data in an accurate way, promote shared data across all team members and then interpret those findings to achieve sustainable growth. Without this, you’ll be stuck in a never-ending cycle of looking at numbers – and only numbers – on a page.
To learn more about implementing a data-driven strategy into your security business, visit teamsoftware.com.
Josh has been supporting customers for over a decade. After working as a Product Manager for over three years, he moved into a director role at the beginning of 2023, where he has continued to express his passion for crafting products that truly enrich the lives of others.
Cal/OSHA Employer Reporting Requirements for Work-Related Fatalities & Severe Injuries
Shaun Kelly, Tolman & Wiker, CALSAGA Preferred Broker
Hope everyone is doing well and coping with the extreme heat we are experiencing. (Please remember to educate and train your employees on heat illness and injury prevention).
This article is to inform you about your responsibilities as employers to report Work-Related Fatalities and Severe Injuries to Cal/OSHA. This is a requirement of all employers and must be reported within 8 hours of your knowledge of serious injury or illness. Failure to report within 8 hours of acknowledgement may result in a minimum penalty of $5,000.
Who has jurisdiction over California Employers, Cal/OSHA or OSHA (Fed)?
Cal/OSHA has jurisdiction over almost every workplace in California. This means Cal/OSHA is the main government agency authorized to inspect California workplaces for occupational safety and health violations. Cal/OSHA also issues permits, licenses, certifications and registrations to ensure that work is performed safely.
Cal/OSHA lacks jurisdiction in only a few limited areas. Some of these areas are listed below. (DISCLAIMER: This list of areas outside Cal/OSHA jurisdiction is not a definitive, exhaustive list. There are exceptions to the list and other areas not listed. If you have a question about Cal/OSHA jurisdiction, please contact the Cal/OSHA Legal Unit at 510-286-7348.)
Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) jurisdiction
Federal OSHA has jurisdiction with regard to the following:
- United States Government employees;
- United States Postal Service (USPS) contractors and contractor-operated facilities engaged in USPS mail operations;
- Private sector employers within the borders of all U.S. military installations;
- Private sector employers within the borders of all U.S. national parks, national monuments, national memorials, and national recreation areas;
- Private sector and tribal employers within the borders of all U.S. Government-recognized Native American reservations and trusts lands;
- Maritime employment (except marine construction, which Cal/OSHA covers on bridges and on shore) on the navigable3 waters of the United States. Maritime employment includes:
- Longshore operations on all vessels from the shore side of the means of access to the vessels.
- Shipbuilding, shipbreaking, and ship repair on vessels afloat; shipbuilding, shipbreaking, and ship repair in graving docks or dry docks; ship repair and shipbreaking done on marine railways or similar conveyances used to haul vessels out of the water. This includes ship repair activities from a scaffold or other equipment adjacent to the ship that allows employees direct access to perform work on the vessel.
- Floating fuel operations.
- Diving from vessels afloat on navigable waters.
Cal/OSHA Definition of Serious Injury or Illness
With regard to reporting to Cal/OSHA, a serious injury or illness is now defined as one involving:
- inpatient hospitalization, regardless of length of time, for other than medical observation or diagnostic testing;
- amputation;
- loss of an eye; or
- serious degree of permanent disfigurement.
Accidents that result in serious injury or illness, or death that occur in a construction zone on a public street or highway are now included by statute. Work-related injuries, illnesses and deaths caused by the commission of a Penal Code violation are no longer excluded from the definition of “serious injury or illness”.
A serious exposure is now defined as an exposure to a hazardous substance that occurs as a result of an incident, accident, emergency, or exposure over time and is in a degree or amount sufficient to create a realistic possibility that death or serious physical harm in the future could result from the actual hazard created by the exposure.
Reporting Requirements
- Every employer shall report immediately to the Division of Occupational Safety and Heath any serious injury, illness or death, of an employee occurring in a place of employment or in connection with any employment. The report shall be made by the telephone or through a specified online mechanism established by the Division for this purpose. Until the Division such mechanisms available, the report may be made by telephone or email.
- Immediately means as soon as practically possible but not longer than 8 hours after the employer knows or with diligent inquiry would have known of the death or serious injury or illness. If the employer can demonstrate that exigent circumstances exist, the time frame for the report may be made no longer than 24 hours after the incident.
- Whenever a state, county, or local fire or police agency is called to an accident involving an employee covered by this part in which a serious injury, or illness, or death occurs, the nearest office of the Division of Occupational Safety and Health shall be notified by telephone immediately by the responding agency.
- When making such report, the reporting party shall include the following information, if available:
- Time and date of accident.
- Employer’s name, address and telephone number.
- Name and job title, or badge number of person reporting the accident.
- Address of site of accident or event.
- Name of person to contact at site of accident.
- Name and address of injured employee(s).
- Nature of injury.
- Location of where injured employee(s) was (were) moved to.
- List and identity of other law enforcement agencies present at the site of accident.
- Description of accident and whether the accident scene or instrumentality has been altered.
- The above reporting requirements is in addition to any other reports required by law and may be made by any person authorized by the employers, state, county, or local agencies to make such reports.
The well-being and protection of your employees is a priority. Effective implementation and training on your safety policies and procedures help to prevent workplace injuries and illnesses, however not allaccidents can be prevented. Having the proper procedures in place after an accident is just as important to mitigate the injury or illness for your employee’s well-being.
Take care and please be safe.
Shaun Kelly joined Tolman & Wiker Insurance Services in 2005. He specializes in all lines of property and casualty insurance for industries including contract security firms, agriculture, construction, oil and gas. Shaun received a BS in Business Administration with a major in Finance from California State University in Fresno, California. He is an active member of several industry associations, including the Association CALSAGA, the Kern County Builders Exchange and the Independent Insurance Agents of Kern County. Shaun can be reached at 661-616-4700 or skelly@tolmanandwiker.com.
The 2023 second quarter edition of The Californian: The Quarterly Newsletter of CALSAGA is now available!
Click here to read The Californian.
Profitability in a New Year
Brandy Tomasek, TEAM Software, CALSAGA Network Partner
One of the most straight-forward ways to increase job profitability is to decrease job-related spending. As much of the world faces the possibility of a recession, decreasing spending is top of mind across industries.
Still, it can seem impossible to cut back on necessary expenditures. Our industry-specific labor market analysis suggests ongoing competitiveness. Labor and overhead – already a significant portion of a security company’s expenses – will likely remain high.
That’s why it is more important than ever to maintain a clear and accurate picture of your profitability. Job costing should be the driving data force behind every decision you make.
Job costing: explained
Job costing is an accounting term that enables a business to track costs by individual jobs. The more granular detail you can gather, the more opportunity you have to protect your profit margins. That’s why getting accurate numbers and recording each one down to the job level is so important in protecting profitability – and helping support a data-backed strategy to help you operate better in the future.
Typically, companies have some kind of process in place that is capturing a 1,000 foot view of profitability. Opportunities are often missed by neglecting to calculate true cost overhead expenses into job-level data. This can include anything from payroll taxes and workers comp, to general liability insurance, supplies, fuel and more. When you don’t account for a portion of these expenses as a cost per job, you really aren’t getting an accurate picture of what it took from your expense budget to service that contract. As labor and supply shortages continue, continuing to take on unprofitable contracts can be dangerous to your resources, time and bottom-line.
Here’s how job costing should work as a part of your back-office system:
Process every financial transaction with an associated job number. That includes everything from payroll, to accounts receivable and payable, to adjusting journal entries. At TEAM Software, we’ve built our software solution to include even more features that allow for payroll taxes and miscellaneous insurance costs to be taken down to the job level, based on payroll dollars at that specific job.
After recording all associated activity to the job level, the rendered data can be used to review accurate accounting practices, compare the data to budgets and (of course) make sure you’re profiting. This information can and should be heavily relied upon for contract renegotiation and bidding future work that might be similar to an existing job.
This kind of feature, when built as a part of an integrated software solution that connects operations, accounting and finance, and the back-office, really sets up security companies to scale, even when times are tough. Remember, your clients are likely seeking to conserve costs as much as you are. Reliable and accurate data gathered through activities like job costing give you the tools to provide clear reporting on the services – and value – you’re delivering on each job. Having this data gathered in one integrated software solution also helps preserve knowledge in the case of turnover at the back-office level, too.
Now’s the time to fine-tune processes
In an age where manpower is harder to come by, improving back-end systems and software solutions can create efficiencies to reduce your dependency on added overhead. Not only does it shed light onto how much money your company has brought in for a particular job, it provides clear data on how much money your company actually made per job. Once you have this knowledge, you can better allocate resources, adjust SLAs and billing, and fine-tune operations so that you are curbing costs and maximizing profit as much as possible in a tightened economy.
If you’re new to job costing, remember the industry experts at TEAM Software are always available to help support your goal of reducing costs, maximizing opportunities and supporting profitability.
Brandy Tomasek joined TEAM Software by WorkWave in 2016. She’s a part of the Client Experience team, working as a Sr. Implementation Lead and Business Consultant. Prior to joining TEAM Software, Brandy earned a Bachelor’s degree in Management and Marketing, as well as her MBA in Organizational Leadership. Brandy’s professional experience spans a range of disciplines from back office accounting to management and leadership in various industries.