Turn guard post orders into observable duties, limits, and handoffs

Source facts: site-specific readiness comes before standing post

The Interagency Security Committee’s 2019 Armed Contract Security Officers in Federal Facilities addresses program management, selection, training, equipment, responsibilities, and quality assurance for federal armed contract officers. It assigns roles to the government and contractor and emphasizes public safety, chain of command, judgment, and verified training.

The guide says the government should determine site-specific training needed before a newly hired officer’s first assignment and should consider newly assigned officers familiar with post orders before they stand the post. It connects that familiarity with continuity, efficiency, and communication. The document also discusses training quality control, supervision, incident response, and written procedures for facility-specific duties.

This federal armed-officer guide does not confer police powers, weapons authority, detention authority, or use-of-force permission on another organization. State licensing, labor law, contract terms, insurance, property authority, collective bargaining, and local law enforcement govern the actual guard program. DSE’s recommendations below apply to the clarity and assurance of post orders, whether a post is armed or unarmed.

DSE recommendation: make the order executable by the next qualified officer

Create one controlled document for each materially different post. A lobby, vehicle gate, mobile patrol, loading entrance, alarm-monitoring desk, and event screening station should not share a generic page that says “maintain security.” Give the order an owner, approval date, version, effective time, distribution list, and superseded-version process.

State the mission and boundary. Explain what people, property, areas, and operations the post protects; the geographic limits; hours; required staffing; who directs the officer; and what authority the officer does and does not possess. Separate observation, access denial, reporting, emergency aid, and law-enforcement functions.

Describe routine work observably. List opening checks, equipment inspection, access decisions, patrol route and randomized elements, key or badge control, log review, deliveries, contractor arrival, alarm handling, prohibited-item actions, safety observations, and end-of-shift reconciliation. Use triggers and expected records instead of vague phrases such as “as needed.”

Build decision tables. For common exceptions, show condition, immediate safe action, person to contact, alternate if unavailable, information to provide, authority required, and required report. Include unknown visitors, lost credentials, door faults, alarms, medical events, fire, severe weather, aggressive behavior, suspicious property, utility failure, and evacuation.

Protect the officer’s limits. Identify prohibited actions and situations requiring a supervisor, emergency services, facilities, HR, or law enforcement. Do not make an officer improvise a search, employment decision, repair, code determination, medical judgment, or hazardous-item examination beyond training and authority.

Control equipment and information. Inventory radios, phones, keys, duress devices, flashlights, protective equipment, forms, maps, contacts, and reference plans. Define readiness checks, defect escalation, charging or replacement, and custody. Keep sensitive details accessible to authorized officers but protected from casual public view.

Require a positive handoff. The relieving officer should receive unresolved incidents, disabled equipment, temporary access instructions, expected visitors, issued keys, active impairments, changed threats, and supervisor directions, then formally accept the post. A signature without a briefing is not continuity.

Qualify officers on the actual post with walk-throughs, supervised performance, knowledge checks, and scenarios. Supervisors should observe duties across different shifts, reconcile logs and key counts, test contact paths, review report quality, and correct both officer performance and unclear instructions. Quality assurance should look for missed tasks and systemic barriers, not manufacture traps unrelated to the post mission.

Revise post orders after layout or tenant changes, new equipment, changed law or contract, recurring exceptions, incidents, exercises, and responder feedback. Brief and document the change before it becomes effective. The best order does not attempt to predict every event; it gives a trained officer a stable mission, safe limits, current resources, and a reliable path to the person authorized to decide.

Official references

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Interagency Security Committee, Armed Contract Security Officers in Federal Facilities: An ISC Best Practice, 2019.

CISA Interagency Security Committee, ISC standards and best-practice program.