The contracted security industry has become flooded by apps and software programs that are designed to simplify the ability to send information about an incident or event to a client. The programs are designed to make it easier for a security guard to create a report and remit it to the client. Clients are sold on the idea of simplicity and efficiency with technology that ultimately masks poor quality of the incident report. They are told it will make the client’s job easier to “analyze” the security company and their employee’s performance. Valentis is no stranger to technology. It deploys real time GPS and summary notifications to our client about an incident or event that has occurred, but it is only one concept of our operation that is linked with multiple others.
The industry is focused on making it easier for the guard to make a report, so when given the task to write a report the document hemorrhages with misspelled words and incomplete sentences that make no sense. Incident reports littered with incoherent thoughts leaves the reader uninformed and requires a painstaking struggle to determine what transpired on the day and hour in question.
We ask… what happened to the timeless art of writing? Why did we skip over the time spent to write the narrative within the incident report that thrusts the reader into the heart of the incident? The art of writing is required, at Valentis, because we view incident reports as a reflection of our client, company, and employees. Incident reports are viewed by more than Valentis and the client, so when a sloppy report is written it affects everyone negatively. A client should imagine, for a moment, receiving a report that contains full sentences with punctuation and informed thoughts. It will seem like a breath of fresh air.
We believe that writing a good report can be instrumental with assisting law enforcement prosecute an actor or our client with resolving civil litigation favorably. The time spent on writing a report will save time later trying to determine what happened. We live in a world that wants things now, but the incident report needs to develop a story that immerses the reader directly in center of it. The well-written incident report will provide the reader the ability to understand what happened first, everything in between, and how it ended.
Individuals who believe that writing a report is nothing more than “observe and report” ideology miss the point of this aspect within the job. Writing is a critical task for many other professionals to do their jobs, effectively, including lawyers, teachers, and even law enforcement officers are required to write reports. Valentis develops careers and professionals.
In the end, report writing is critical to the success of Valentis and our client objectives. The facts that we see, hear, or touch cannot be changed but forming words together to create intelligent sentences brings the incident to life and gives it meaning. The incident report utilizes the ability of the Valentis security guard to state the facts and relevant information to create a story using complete thoughts. It ultimately allows the reader to dissect the story to fully understand exactly what happened.
The art of writing is not and was never lost at Valentis. It is part of our culture and concepts. It is what makes us different and it is what we deliver to our clients every day.