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CCTV training and transfer of learning

The strategy of any organisation should shape the surveillance approach, and that in turn should shape the nature of training that is done to equip personnel to carry out those responsibilities. For me one of the key issues is that training should not be provided for training’s sake – to fulfil the budget needs and keep people in a job.

Three major questions need to be considered in any training intervention and CCTV is no different. Firstly, is the training addressing core functions to fulfil the CCTV strategy? Secondly, does the content and quality of training in CCTV provide a value add and return on investment to justify not only the cost of training, but provide substantive benefits to the organisation? Thirdly, does the training facilitate an effective transfer of learning into the work environment?

If the organisation has the objective of detecting and addressing theft or violence, then the training must provide positive answers to these three questions. There may, however, still remain some debate on where the source of such training should be – internal management and supervisors, service providers, or specialists.

In the UK, the CCTV model is based largely on town centres where policies emphasise procedure, protocols, legal issues and evidence handling. This is consistent with their political needs to maintain CCTV as a publicly acceptable and beneficial technology.

Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, speaking at a recent conference I attended in the UK in June, made a somewhat controversial statement that all the emphasis and training on the human rights act and other legislation and procedures had not caught one criminal. While characteristically direct and unexpected, his emphasis seemed to be on the fact that the focus in the UK is not on how to catch people in the UK, it is on how to follow procedures and administer the control room in a publicly responsible manner. Similarly the training focus for operators is very much on carrying out these kinds of duties in line with the public strategy.

Policy versus safety

South African crime being what it is, we probably have far more concern about detection and catching people. This is not to say that responsible and ethical use of systems is not important, although for me, training in these areas is something that should largely be coming from management and supervisors as part of their ongoing contact, coaching and communication with staff. Things like the basic knowledge of control room equipment, logs, and procedures are also important, but this knowledge is often specific to the systems and equipment suppliers. The extensive variety of hardware, software and policy and procedural issues and the potential infinite variety of these means that there is no single training provider who could cope with direct training for all of these. Unfortunately, there is a serious need for suppliers and installers to provide effective training for staff on the equipment and systems they provide, not just in South Africa, but elsewhere as well.

Conversely, my focus for training in South Africa and around the world has been on observation skills, understanding of body language and recognising these signs under incident conditions, and generating a sensitivity to risk and changes that will allow operators to not only detect but potentially intercept and prevent incidents from occurring. This highlights the danger associated with using models of training developed in other countries with different strategies and priorities.

The exception to this is probably technical training which, given the international nature of equipment and system providers in the industry, is common to virtually all countries. I think the emphasis on training for crime recognition and detection in South Africa has led to major benefits, not only here, but in a number of organisations in other countries. An important factor is that it is the organisations for whom detection is an important part of their company strategy who have engaged in such training.

One-step of the process

Provision of training is only one step of a process, however. One would like to assume that the people who are being trained have the capacity and potential to use what is provided effectively. Our research has indicated that this can vary significantly in the area of CCTV and selection is a critical issue.

Besides this are a number of other important success factors for me. The issues being covered in training need to become a part of the management and surveillance culture – I have encountered situations where operators have made astute observations and managers who have received no training disregarded their contributions because they didn’t understand what was happening. Managers need to have the skills and knowledge to carry the learning into the work environment effectively. This means reinforcement of training principles, coaching in techniques and viewing, and feedback loops to show that observation has led to substantive outcomes that reflect well on staff.

What I have found in the most successful operations at detection is that even the incident reports that get produced reflect a 'language of surveillance' and the process of capturing and logging data is aimed at creating the right information that can be used not only as evidence but as a source for intelligence. Where this kind of management culture exists and supervisory personnel are actively involved in continually promoting the application of knowledge, the transfer of learning from training to workplace becomes a continuous and shared experience.

Dr Craig Donald is a human factors specialist in security and CCTV. He is a director of Leaderware which provides instruments for the selection of CCTV operators, X-ray screeners and other security personnel in major operations around the world. He also runs CCTV Surveillance Skills and Body Language, and Advanced Surveillance Body Language courses for CCTV operators, supervisors and managers internationally, and consults on CCTV management. He can be contacted on +27 (0)11 787 7811 or [email protected]

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