SECURITY SERVICES
A two-fold solution Why investing in people and technology will enable us to ride out the ‘perfect storm’ by Rob Hill, MD of Corps Monitoring and Paul Lotter, MD of Corps Security
W
hile consumers are feeling the pinch with rocketing costs of living, businesses too are faced with something of a perfect storm of challenges. Inflation continues to rise and shows little sign of abating, energy bills are soaring, and tax hikes have been imposed in the form of increased National Insurance premiums. Meanwhile, the UK minimum wage has gone up to £9.50 an hour, with the Real Living Wage also rising to £9.90 per hour and
38 | June 2022 | IN SECURITY
£11.05 in London. All of this is having to be absorbed by businesses across virtually every nook and cranny of the economy. In the support services industry, as with many others, we are also faced with an acute labour crisis. Across the UK, there are currently around 1.1 million job vacancies, many of them in service-led sectors that have been unable to offer career stability as a result of the prolonged periods of restrictions and lockdowns seen since 2020. Labour shortages are in turn
driving up wages alongside the so-called Great Resignation, which is being fuelled by a combination of older workers seeking to retire earlier and younger people choosing to travel, remain in education or set up their own businesses. And with migration numbers falling, skills gaps continue to widen. A two-fold solution for security enterprises Amid these surging costs of doing business, the temptation for many firms is to either cut salaries or
