Not so warm welcome

No matter how hard GP tries to uphold its company culture and values to internal and external audience by means of colorful posters, stickers and festoons in its office premises, all the efforts risk going in vain because of the personnel who are supposed to greet you with a smile at the reception. Outsourcing the security and external visitor registration to third party providers have become the norm for the MNCs these days. Grameen Phone seem to be no exception. However even my today’s encounter at the GP premises was no exception when I was ‘greeted’ by gloomy faced, uniform-clad, weary security personnel. Forget smile, they didn’t even bother to establish eye contact. Very reluctantly they forwarded me the registration sheet in which even more reluctantly I penned down half-correct information and proceeded inside the elevator with the swipe card.

The same day I had to make a visit to a leading multinational bank called StanChart, where I found that the doors and desks are manned by one of the leading security services agencies of the country. They were seen completely confused, stressed and irritated trying to answer queries of the queued visitors. I went to meet my friend Mr. Banker and informed the men in uniform the person I was looking for. They had a tough time scanning through the staff sheet at hand, and finally told me to go to level-6. Upon reaching the suggested level, I was ‘greeted’ with yet another layer of security (or door manning?). I told them that I came to meet Mr. Banker. They again went through their version of staff sheet and told me that Mr. Tanker is not available now. I was at a loss, as I had a prior tele-conversation with the person in question. I realized that the semi-educated security personnel couldn’t even hear a name right, couldn’t even spell out a name right. I also realized that after all they don’t belong to the company per se, they infact belong to the third party service provider in this case, G4S. But I wonder if companies like GP and StanChart don’t give any proper orientation or not to these personnel who man their receptions. Are they ever briefed from time to time about the host company’s culture, values and norms? Do they ever cross-check if the personnel at the first interface at the doorstep actually uphold the values to external guests? I wonder.

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So even companies like G4S have tasks at hand. Mere giving basic martial arts training and basic etiquettes is perhaps not enough any more. A thorough understanding and knowledge about the host company’s values and norms is a must before they grab the business of placing their (wo)men in recipient companies. Otherwise, people like me will continue getting annoyed at the doorsteps of different companies, taking service for granted and accepting the fact that service with a smile is a myth in Bangladeshi corporates.

Ensuring security with respect

One fine evening, I came out of Landview building, at Gulshan-2. I stood at the stairs while I saw a group of roving RAB officers parking their bikes. One of them came up the stairs while the others took time in anchoring their vehicles. As if I had found a long lost friend, I asked the officer standing next to me, “ei je RAB bhai, apnader gorom lage na? ei je kalo jama pore rodey ghora ghori koren...” (Yo RAB bro, you don’t feel hot or what? Wearing this black outfit and out there in the sun…). The officer looked at me with his sun-glassed eyes, scanned me from top to bottom and replied after a long silence, “No…we are used to it”. By the mean time, I have realized that I had put hand in a tiger’s mouth and asked if the teeth were sharp or not. The other officers starting appearing, I gave the RAB bhai a dry smile and immediately disappeared into thin air.

These RAB officers, I thought, have surely created a brand image for themselves. For their heroics, the headlines (right or wrong) or because of the mere black gears they were, have certainly helped create a sense of trust and security (for some), awe (for some) and fear (for some). However the same cannot be said regarding our ‘supposed to be custodians’—the police. They are however, government servants, mostly ill-paid and ill-fed. Talking about what the government should do to uplift the police’s image is beyond the scope of this blog. So we turn our focus to the private players who are playing in the fields of providing security—G4S and Securex. We talk about G4S here.

First and foremost, I ask to the wiser amongst you, do you have any idea about this industry? What is their market size? How many players are there other than the ones I know? What is the number of employment they are generating? Do they have any association or something? (I bet they do, any more than two Bengalis are supposed to form a political party, association, council, committee etc.). I would love to know more about this service sector which seems to be growing in leaps in bounds.

Big private corporates, embassies, clubs, NGOs, banks—I guess the major clients who are provided security by companies like G4S. I guess they are the market leaders, just assuming, as I see their security personnel around most often. I believe they are doing a good job, their employers have lot of room to do even better for them. Other than providing them with clean uniforms and caps, other than installing discipline into their lives (through parade/P.T. conducted by ex-defence personnel), the employers can orient them with self-dignity as well. No doubt that the general public don’t give as much ‘patta’ to the G4S folks as much as they give to the RAB Bhais. The elite black force has created a ‘brand personality’ for themselves, as coined by Shahriar in his recent post. But due to some common reasons, private security personnel are yet to create that brand image for themselves. Why is that?

Education could be a reason. Self-confidence could be another. Behaviour, conduct, attitude can be other. All these seem to be tacit knowledge but very important in a crucial service sector like security. I hope the management of G4S does not become too complacent of the fact that we are a labor-intensive nation and we can ‘cheap-bargain’ manpower to accomplish our own corporate objectives. The circumstances are such in Bangladesh that we become compelled not to give dignity of labour. I can give a ‘jhari’ to a G4S security-wala easily, but I would think twice before taking a piss with a RAB man. I am not asking the G4S people to be rude or ill-mannered or fearsome. But some sort of attitude should be instilled in them. I guess once their employers start giving them respect for their job, they will reflect that respect to us, and eventually we all will deal with each other with the ‘due’ respect we expect when we meet.