Where Does It All Begin?

Have you ever pondered where a product or service starts? I realize that this might be a chicken-or-egg conversation. But consider a company or a monitoring center at its roots and how it arrived at a point at which it succeeded or perhaps failed, and you wondered why it failed.

The companies that get to say that they’re part of the “Best of the Best” usually didn’t get there by accident; it was the result of a disciplined approach to how the organization grows and is run. That discipline becomes even more important as you start to scale up and increase products, services and the required support to assist users or providers.

A Monitoring Center on Every Corner

When I first started in this business, it seemed as if there was a monitoring center on every corner; most were small and covered smaller geographical areas, mostly because of the limitations of copper wire from the monitoring centers to the protected premises.

In the mid-’70s, the digital dialer was born and it all changed. With the newfound ability to have a subscriber anywhere in the U.S., the industry started to compress and develop bigger centers, albeit fewer of them.

If you fast-forward 45 years, we are now in a position where the number of listed monitoring companies, if you take out the proprietary ones, is around 100. This number decreases every year, either because of acquisitions or because alarm companies decide to use a wholesale monitoring center and outsource the work.

Earlier in this article, I used the word “discipline,” which can mean a lot of different things to different people. However, in this context, it’s how well a company can define a process and improve upon that process as time goes on, all while not deviating from its core beliefs and models.

Doing this takes discipline–and it all starts with the hiring process.

The monitoring industry has changed dramatically over the past 15 years. The job has become a very complex and variable task; the days of handling every incident the same way are long over. Today, a whole new kind of employee is required.

Hiring in the monitoring center is, without a doubt, the single most significant investment. And, in my opinion, it’s the most important area for a monitoring center to get right because, if you don’t have competent and intelligent staff, you cannot provide “Best of the Best” products and services.

What These Disciplines Look Like

So, what do these disciplines look like from my vantage point? Although I am writing this drawing from my experience with monitoring centers, it also translates to any business in which staff members have very specialized tasks.

The following are my top five things that you, at a minimum, have to do to hire correctly:

1. You have to learn to use one critical word in business: “No.” Sometimes, you have to say “No” to people. In fact, you will say “No” to most. You have to say “No” to your managers — particularly your hiring managers — and you have to add, “We are going to keep looking for people — the right people.” You cannot operate on the premise that this was the best of the bunch and just settle for that. Sometimes, you have to keep looking and not simply settle for “good enough.”
2. Always be in a hiring mode. Even if you don’t need anyone right now, you never know who might walk in the door and wow you. Always be recruiting and hiring. This allows you to have a list of potential hires, keeping existing staff members on their toes and motivated to do their best.
3. Develop a minimum level of competency. Agree in advance about the evaluation testing tools and the required scores and results. This has to be accepted by everyone in the company as a “go or no-go” decision point. Even if the person is one point off or slightly short of the scale — and even if they have the best personality ever — you must go back to rule number one and say “No.” If you don’t, your staff will degrade over time, and that’s a company killer.

4. Look for things that let you know that a candidate can start something and complete a long-term mission. Good examples include earning a college degree, joining the armed forces and receiving an honorable discharge, and maintaining a work pattern that demonstrates long-term employment. Apart from looking for long-term missions, you need to look to see if the candidate fits your culture. As an example, if your culture is one of education, look for certifications or degrees that the person has attained, even if they’re not in the monitoring business. If you have a culture of charitableness, look for volunteer work and their track record of giving back. Culture is essential in an organization, and only the owners and managers should define what that culture is.
5. When you are looking for people, consider the idea that you are hiring not to fill today’s job requisitions but, rather, to prepare tomorrow’s managers, supervisors and directors. As your business grows and changes, you will need to have good people. If you hire a bunch of “B” players just to fill the slots, you won’t have anyone to fill those higher-level positions in three or four years, and you will have to start over. Pro Tip: This applies to technologists. If you hire mediocre technologists who can only work on today’s infrastructure, you will have to rehire when you upgrade your technology because your existing people will be incapable of managing the new technology.

Those are my top five tips for hiring correctly; you should have your own top five for your own organization. And once you do, make sure everyone knows what they are. When you are looking at potential vendors or monitoring centers, ask the company to take you on a deep dive into their own hiring process.

The information you get will provide you with valuable insight into how the company operates, what its culture looks like and the kind of employees you will likely work with on a day-to-day basis.

Morgan Hertel is vice president of technology and innovation for Rapid Response Monitoring.

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