Guardsmark Reviews

Pros

My best reasons to work at Guardsmark is you get to interact with a lot of different people and companies, which gives you different opportunities to enhance you abilities.

Cons

The ability to move up in the company is very slim.

Advice to Senior Management

More job opportunities for your employees and training classes.

Pros

The co-workers and the people that I work with are good people

Cons

The Management is is bad, they play games with you and dont lead by example. This is just a filler job until I can find somewhere else to work

Advice to Senior Management

To all the Managers I have come across at Guardsmark, Stay at this company for as long as you can. Because you would not make it as a manager at a bigger and more respectable company. But, I am sure you already know that. You need to learn how to take care of your employees and learn some ethics.

Pros

close to home, free uniforms

Cons

there are no benefits, you get no respect

Pros

Good site supervisor and co-workers. ( friendly atmosphere at least , where I used to work)
It can be a good start for someone who wants to gain some experience and continue a career in security field but definitely , it is not a good company to stay with for too long.
It is mostly a horrible experience.

Cons

What a horrible company!
Free benefits? ( it's a piece of garbage not real benefits)
Free Uniforms? ( very old style , already used clothes)
Horrible hiring process! ( you need to pass background check, drug test, polygraph test, answer 500 questions, complete two long applications to....get a job for $10 /hr) Isn't is a JOKE?
Monthly Training Sheet( Each month all officers are required to complete training regarding safety, fire rules, etc.) However, this is not a real training! They give you a booklet and you have to read, copy and paste the answers! What is that????
Big propaganda spread by the management! If they tell you how great this company is, great benefits, opportunities....it's all one big lie!
No overtime, No direct deposit ( it depends what site you work for)
The management expect from you to follow all stupid Guardsmark's policies, shut up, and pretend that everything is great and we are happy.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop spreading this propaganda, telling people how great Guardsmark is. It is not true!

Pros

Free Health Care
Dental
Work
Free Uniforms
Will help with additional schooling.

Cons

Low Hours per Pay Period
Site Supervisor Not Properly Trained for duties.
Hiring Process to Long For Low Hours
Not Stable enough,
Regional Manager Not Very Helpful at all.
Direct Deposit is Not On Every job Site.
Uniforms not Correct Size, Or not getting Uniforms requested.
Company Promise 40+ Hours of work.
Must have 40 Hours For Free Health Care.

Advice to Senior Management

Be More supportive, Get Direct Deposit For All Job Sites. Review Regional Mangers and Site Supervisor twice per year and ask employee they feel site supervisor and regional manager are able to perform duties. Employee Surveys.

Pros

- It is a job
- It pays something
- The schedule is steady
- Cool co-workers
- Opportunity to gain "Interim" Secret clearance
- Not every account is this one

Cons

- Horrible Site supervisor
- Poor communication between management, client and workforce
- No variety of tasking
- No investment in team
- No solid leadership
- No accountability
- Providing the "Illusion" of security
- Feel as though the job does not matter, nor do I to this company
- Will leave as soon as another offer comes along

Advice to Senior Management

Sit down with the client and workforce present, give us a clear direction and destroy the communication barriers.

Develop the staff and cross train. We are contracted by GDLS and even though we augment their staff allow us a place to learn and grow while we are here.

We invest OUR time and are not paid much, so why not develop us and make the investment and cultivate this team the right way? Make us apart of something have us "buy in" so to speak.

Be more flexible with our scheduling, there is life outside of Guardsmark. Better cross training would end the limited ability of the crew to work in other positions.

Finally and this may just be myself but, I have NEVER worked a job where I did not know my entire group of co-workers, what is that? You cannot have a team if no one on the team knows the team!

It often feels like no one on this account cares but that is what we get from management and the client.

As far as approving of Mr. Lipman, I will probably never meet him so I cannot say one way or another about him.

Pros

The job doesn't pay 100k, never will. It's not that kind of deal, you have to better yourself to advance your life.

The job is the easiest work you'll ever do. Stand there watch cameras, note anything wierd and call the boss. Be nice, smile, and wave. Piece of cake work for the most part.

They do pay 1-2 dollars more an hour than most companies, and they give you basic medical ins for free for their f/t peeps. That is a really square deal I have to admit.

Management doesn't enforce anything, so you can basically be an idiot as i've seen many fellow guards be with impunity. See next section for furthur info.

Overall for an easy job it pays the bills and is a good fall back job in this enviornment, its a company trying to watch margins and if you play along its ok.

Cons

As a security guard you don't make 100k, so being realistic for the job - they pay ok but there is little recognition and in the way of raises. I just saw a guy get a $25 bonus for doing somehting good. Wow thanks what a deal....not worth the gas/time to pick it up. That really should have been $200 or better, it used to be $55 from a year ago.

The managers are distant at times, and do some real chicken things. They say your overtime will be a certain amount...just to find your rate was $2 - $3 less an hour on your paycheck. You can't do anything about it b/c the offer was not in writing. Then no more overtime b/c you tell them to make it right cause thats bs to promise to pay me XX amount an hour to find they dicked you $40 bucks or so overall.

The uniforms make you look like a mormon bike-riding-do-gooder.

No hope for advancement, unless you really are a serious rubber stamping brown noser to the account manager. Even then it is no guarantee. I have seen someone who is the golden child get 40 hours a week by taking 8 hours away from another guy. How nice to be given 40 hours a week and then reduced to 32 arbitrarily, for no reason. Very fair to that guy, huh?

They hire the dumbest people, and don't discipline them. I've seen sleeping, ridculous hair-do's, reading, texting while skyping while facebooking at the same time. Usually those idiots are the ones who say the job isn't fair. Management avoids enforcing the rules so long as the revenue keeps coming in. Then again that is their primary focus so you can't in all fairness fault them for looking out for the most important things first and this stuff later/last. Annoying as that may be.

A lot of redundant paperwork, tests, forms, and things that no one reads, checks, verifys, or anything. Really a big time waster. They have a business model of the 1970s technologically - no soft copies, all hard paper, I surprised they don't use dot matrix printers or chisel the info on stones like the flintsone newspapers.

No direct deposit too from the previous paragraph.

Advice to Senior Management

Being a company where we only "observe and report" can make us less useful to the eyes of potential clients. It doesn't sound good to some people - it needs to be curtailed to sound more helpful.

You should note who the better people are and make them supervisors. You should upgrade your technologly and rules so the client isn't fed up with you. You should try to really hire better people, though that is harder to do in all fairness.

Other than that you are doing a good job overall. Very profitable machine if done right.

Pros

Good start up pay, company issued uniform, Full time employee medical and 401(k). One week paid vacation is earned after one year and two weeks after two years and above. No experience necessary and minimum disciplinary rules in place.

Cons

The startup pay is the maximum pay received so don’t expect a raise. Poor Human resource management causes errors in pay, loss of paper checks (no direct deposit), poor training conducted on paper only and no connection between security officers and the branch office. Ecologically unfriendly as the company uses monthly paper training pamphlets and a newsletter to portray the lavish life of Ira Lipman and his family. No reward for doing a good job.

Advice to Senior Management

Get with the digital generation, start using paperless training, daily reports, and payroll. Keep the company presidents face out of the monthly newsletter we know he is rich. Open the lines of communication between the security officers and management.

Pros

Nice work area, co-workers were great.

Cons

Horrible management, unequal pay among people doing the exact same job (management does not want you to discuss your salary with other workers for this reason), advancement and career progression are pretty much impossible unless you know someone.

Advice to Senior Management

Start paying people equal pay.
Offer advancement/career progression to your workers.
Hire managers who actually can manage people, not just collect paychecks.

Pros

Benefits and salaries are good for both Management and officers and there is a certain degree of autonomy. I have a very good boss who lets me do my job, but I can always come to him when I have a problem.

Cons

Sometimes long hours, and if one wants to move up past account manager, it is unlikely, unless the person is either from a famous school, ex-military or ex-law enforcement. Also,way too much paper is used instead of distributing and storing soft copies of documents such as post orders, Some clients are also unhappy with the lack of advanced technology offered by Guardsmark.

Advice to Senior Management

Look more at your long-time management employees for promotions to branch manager or Manager-in-Charge instead of mostly hiring for outside for these positions. There are a lot of us out there who are perfectly capable and you will see the benefits of having tenured people in those positions who are already familiar with the accounts, the area serviced by that branch, and how Guardsmark works.