1st Reporting
Updated October 7, 2024.
When you’re trying to run a security firm, we know you’ve got better things to do than try to dream up the documents needed to maintain smooth and efficient operations. Documentation for your security officers to note down their daily activities, patrol reports, and, of course, the shift report all contribute to your organized system that your clients will depend on and appreciate.
The free (downloadable) security shift report incident template is a report that organizes and communicates the officer’s shift activities. A shift report provides details of activities, incidents, and observations during a specific shift, which could be a morning, afternoon, or night shift.
Following, you’ll find information about the security shift report, including a breakdown of its components and how to fill it in each section appropriately. We’ll follow up with a few tips to help you with your operations, so this is one article you’ll want to take a few minutes to read. Let’s jump into what you can expect included in the Security Shift Report template.
Included In The Security Shift Report Template
Shift Report Template Basics
- Purpose: A shift report provides details of activities, incidents, and observations during a specific shift, which could be a morning, afternoon, or night shift.
- Content: Generally includes patrol activities, incident details, observations, and any issues encountered during the shift. It may also record any handover notes for the next shift, such as ongoing issues or areas needing special attention.
- Usage: Primarily for the security team and management to stay informed about what happened during a particular shift. It allows the next shift to understand ongoing situations or issues that need attention quickly.
- Frequency: Completed at the end of each shift, making it more frequent than the daily report if there are multiple shifts in a day.
The 3 Sections Of The Security Shift Report
Our complete security shift report form is broken into three major sections. These sections are all vital for conveying and organizing the security officer’s shift activities. The areas are as follows:
- Administrative Information
- Shift Notes (Quick View)
- Detailed Shift Activity Log
Administrative Report Information
Like any report, there needs to be administrative information to help you organize your reports. It includes the officer’s name and pertinent other vital administrative information.
In order to avoid security personnel having to duplicate their identification information on each report, there is another solution, and that is to use a digital reporting solution like the 1st app. Still, we’ll get more into that later.
Shift Security, Safety, And Other Notes
The second section of the security shift report again includes three areas. These sections are as follows:
- Security Incidents Noted
- Safety Incidents Noted
- Other Shift Notes
The three columns intention is to be a ‘snap-shot’ view of the security officer’s shift. The first column is related to security incidents encountered by the security officer. The second column notes are to include safety incidents encountered. Safety is every business’s concern, and you can add value to your security firm by helping clients identify ways to prevent hazards to increase safety. To read more about safety, check out our article on Achieving Ideal Work Environments: 8 Crucial Safety Tips for the Workplace.
Lastly, the third column provides an area to note other forms of occurrences seeking inclusion on the shift report. These might include completing the employee or visitor screening forms, employee injury, or different types of incidents.
Adding things like pictures, audio, and video are ways that security personnel can deliver vital information efficiently. Unfortunately, a manually written report has difficulty finding the ability to include photos, videos, or audio. However, there’s a solution for that too with a digital platform for security reports like 1st.
Detailed Shift Activity Log
The last section of the security shift report is broken further into two sections, each identical. It allows for many shift activities to be included in the shift report. Naturally, these two sections find they are broken down further into three columns: time, activity, and report number or note.
How To Use The Security Shift Report
Security officers note their activities throughout a shift. And the more professional a security company and officer, the more brief and comprehensive the information relayed becomes.
As a security professional, it’s vital to convey a sense of just that – professional security to your clients. Sharing that message is difficult when staff set up roadblocks to your organizational and administrative efforts. Clients want to see that you’ve got things under control – and that includes the paperwork!
The Security Shift Report Template we have here for you to download is a means of organizing the security officer’s shift in an easy-to-read, ‘snap-shot’ format. The shift report is used as a sort of log of activities and notes further reports for reference. The concept is that the report will help to give a view of the shift. One could view the report similarly to looking at a table of contents in a book. The report should be short-form points that deliver information without excess.
The security officers can note the individual incident reports, patrol reports, vehicle accident reports, or any other security incidents or reports completed during the shift within the security shift report. These notes provide a quick view of the number of occurrences and give data on finding further, more detailed supplemental reports specific to each occurrence.
Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay
Use The Security Shift Report Template Or Go Digital?
In the world of print, over half a million trees need to be cut and milled into paper just to produce each week’s sunday papers in the United States (source). And if your business hasn’t gone digital, it can feel like that much paper is moving around your office.
What if you could take your reporting to the next level by eliminating the physical report for a digital solution? Using the 1st Reporting App, it’s not just a dream – it’s a reality. Here’s a few key takeaways of how it can benefit your company:
- Increased Reporting Efficiency with a Digital Shift Report Template
Reducing labor expenses via the use of a digital reporting platform saves a lot of money over time. Consider that every report being handwritten will take double or even triple the length of time to complete compared to a digital form. Also, the time spent cataloging, filing, and retrieving the printed forms is almost completely eliminated with a digital solution.
- Additional Media Coverage
Adding photos, videos or audio recordings is easy with a digital reporting solution like the 1st Reporting App.
- Instant Notifications
Setup emergency notifications based on the type of incident report being submitted. It allows you to maintain 24-hour management control over a facility, even when you aren’t there. By having one of your security officers file a report, a trigger can be set to get notifications right to your smartphone, no matter where you are.
Want to try our digital reporting solution for your Security Shift Report? Click Here to test out 1st Reporting app.
