5 minute read
HR’s Role When Lives are at Stake
Ashley Duncan, HR Manager, SafeHaven Security Group
Doug Elms, Founder, SafeHaven Security Group
These are some of the questions that HR leaders ask the Threat Management pros at SafeHaven Security Group each day. It is the proper answers to these questions that keep everyone safe. But this article isn’t about partnering with HR to prevent violence.
This story is about what it’s like to run HR when your company saves lives for a living. Meet Ashley Duncan, HR manager for SafeHaven. Ashley’s experience runs the gamut from Chamber director to festival organizer to the toughest job she’s ever had – recruiting talent, retaining key players, and developing policies for a fastgrowing start-up with a critical mission. Ashley is a dedicated mother of two boys who also happens to be an amazing singer/songwriter. Her style is reminiscent of Lzzy Hale, and she performs regularly with her band. When Ashley first moved to NW Arkansas (consistently ranked in the top 10 places to live in the U.S.) she knew she wanted to work for a small company where her diverse talents could make a real difference. She longed to find an organization that did important work in the lives of people. Enter Doug Elms. Doug is a former police officer who worked the mean streets of Little Rock, Arkansas back when it was known as the most dangerous small city in America. Doug served 12 years, ultimately leaving after being wounded in a gunfight with armed robbers.
After working closely with the Secret Service when Bill Clinton became President, Doug was recruited to Walmart where he protected multiple CEO’s as well as members of the Walton family. After a successful 24-year career, he felt compelled to start a company that offered organizations across the country the highest level of expertise in recognizing and managing threats of all kinds.
SafeHaven Security Group and SafeHaven Threat Management are the result of that compulsion.
ASHLEY: For me I think it’s the realization that, unlike my previous roles, if we don’t have the right people in the right place at the right time, with the right skills, someone could suffer a terrible loss.
DOUG: I couldn’t agree more. Everyone here understands that our actions prevent violence and save lives. What’s more important than that?
Q Wow, that’s a lot of responsibility. What does that look like in real life?
DOUG: Well, we helped a client dodge a bullet recently.
Kind of.
An employee at a regional bank became very concerned about the ever-stranger behavior of a customer. She’d been to one of our seminars on preventing violence and recognized a number of warning signs. She told her boss, who failed to act. Finally, she went over his head to HR and they contacted us immediately. Our assessment was completed in hours and we rated this situation as very high-risk. We believed the customer was working toward a kidnap and rape scenario. Working with the client we developed a management plan and literally managed the threat out of existence. The customer relationship was severed in the right way and he took his business elsewhere.
We tried to get the prosecutor to act on an obviously dangerous situation, but they refused. A few months later, the former customer succeeded in kidnapping, raping, and murdering an elderly woman in the same town, giving strong credibility to our original assessment. The problem with these deals is the number of “if’s.” IF that employee hadn’t been trained on the warning signs. IF the HR leader hadn’t taken action. IF the bank didn’t have a Threat Management partner. Too many “if’s.“ ASHLEY: Part of our job is to reduce the number of “if’s.”
Q I’m assuming neither of you are directly involved with serving clients. How do you sleep at night knowing people you hired are responsible for carrying out such a serious mission?
DOUG: Sometimes we don’t.
ASHLEY: Hahaha, true. We have worked hard to clearly identify who we are looking for and we recruit to those standards.
DOUG: For me, it’s all about trust. I trust Ashley to find and hire the right people with the right skills and the right attitude to serve our clients well. She trusts me to lead our organization well. ASHLEY: Once they are on-boarded and inundated with SafeHaven culture, we get out of the way and let them do their jobs, while supporting them at all times. Q What’s the deal with SafeHaven culture?
ASHLEY: I love our culture! It is open and friendly and caring, but we hold each other accountable to the highest standards.
DOUG: And that doesn’t just mean work product. We publish our core values and expect everyone to behave according to those principles.
Q To be more tactical, what do you struggle with, as far as daily operations?
ASHLEY: Recruiting, retention, and training, as well as keeping up with our rate of growth.
DOUG: Staying focused on strategy-level issues and not getting bogged down in the detail.
Q Sounds familiar. How do you handle those day-to-day issues?
ASHLEY: To be honest, it’s hard. I’m learning every day. Doug saw my struggle to keep up and hired an executive coach for me, which is really helping.
DOUG: Same. I have a tendency to be very detail oriented and always look for ways to make things just a bit better. It’s important that I have senior leaders who will challenge me when
I dive too deep.
Q Everyone is struggling to find and keep talent. How are you doing in that area?
DOUG: With our senior people, it’s been relatively easy. We can attract former FBI and Secret Service agents as well as police officers and highly experienced threat managers.
ASHLEY: Entry level is a different story, especially with our high standards. I’m excited to say that, after a two-month study of the problem, we have developed a powerful solution that will set us apart from most ever other company in our field.
Q You have to tell us about that!
DOUG: Nope.
ASHLEY: We aren’t ready to make that public just yet. Sorry.
Q One last question. This work seems so crucial and the stakes are so high. Why do you do it?
DOUG: Because I’m a protector and because I love building professional organizations that serve others.
ASHLEY: Because of past experiences, the work we do has deep meaning to me. We keep people safe and probably partner more with HR leaders than any other group. Our work resonates with me on many levels.
Need a Threat Management partner? Contact SafeHaven Security Group at 844-SAFEGROUP or safehavensecuritygroup.com. You can reach Ashley Duncan at ashley@safehavensecuritygroup.com or Doug Elms at doug.elms@safehavensecuritygroup.com.
