On Monday, March 23, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris issued stay-at-home executive orders for the city and county. The orders took effect immediately, and overnight, the rules of the game changed for every business in Memphis, including the companies that provide their security.
Security guards are now classified as essential workers. That designation means they keep reporting to their posts while much of the city stays home. It also means they’re showing up to properties that are operating under completely different conditions than they were two weeks ago. Empty office buildings that used to have 500 people walking through the lobby now have three. Shopping centers that were packed on Saturday afternoons have a fraction of their normal traffic. Restaurants are dark except for takeout windows. Beale Street looks like a photograph from a history book.
The security industry in Memphis is being reshaped by this crisis in real time, and nobody has a playbook for what’s happening.
The Contract Scramble
The first calls started coming in during the week of March 16. Security company owners across Memphis told me variations of the same story: clients calling to reduce hours, suspend contracts, or ask for temporary pricing concessions. Some calls were desperate. A restaurant owner on Overton Square who was facing zero dine-in revenue asking to cut his weekend guard service. A boutique hotel downtown with single-digit occupancy wondering whether they could pause their contract entirely and restart when the crisis passed.
On the other side, a different set of calls came in. A grocery chain wanting additional guards at entrances to manage crowds and enforce purchase limits. A pharmacy asking for overnight patrol because of concerns about break-ins targeting medications and supplies. A property management company with three empty office buildings requesting increased patrol frequency because the buildings were sitting unoccupied for the first time in their history.
The net effect on revenue depends on the company’s client mix. Firms heavily concentrated in hospitality, entertainment, and retail are getting hit hard. Firms with healthcare, logistics, and essential retail clients are holding steady or growing. Nobody is unaffected.
One security company owner in Memphis described it as “musical chairs with contracts.” His company lost four accounts in ten days and picked up two new ones. The new ones pay less per hour than the ones he lost. He’s running the math daily, trying to figure out whether he can keep all his guards employed or whether layoffs are coming.
Guards on the Front Line
Security guards in Memphis are now doing things that weren’t in their job descriptions a month ago. Temperature screening at facility entrances. Enforcing social distancing in grocery store lines. Monitoring capacity limits at essential businesses. Turning away customers who aren’t wearing masks (though mask mandates haven’t been formally issued yet, some businesses are implementing their own policies).
These are tasks that require a different kind of training than traditional security work. A guard who’s trained to handle trespassers and write incident reports may not be comfortable telling a frustrated customer they can’t enter a store because the capacity limit has been reached. De-escalation skills matter more now than they did a month ago, and the situations that require them are completely new.
PPE is a real problem. Security companies are competing with healthcare facilities and the general public for masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer. The supply isn’t there. Some companies have managed to source basic supplies. Others are sending guards to posts with nothing more than the advice to wash their hands frequently and maintain distance when possible, which is hard to do when you’re standing at a door checking IDs.
The health risk to guards is not theoretical. Security officers interact with dozens or hundreds of people per shift. They touch door handles, sign-in sheets, and access cards that have been handled by multiple people. They can’t work from home. They can’t maintain six feet of distance while conducting a bag check. And many of them don’t have health insurance through their employers.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t report health insurance coverage rates for security guards specifically, but industry surveys consistently show that unarmed guards working for contract security companies are among the least likely private-sector workers to receive employer-provided health benefits. If a security guard in Memphis gets sick with COVID-19, the cost of treatment falls on them, and their ability to pay while missing shifts is limited.
Essential Worker, Essential Questions
The “essential worker” designation is a double-edged label. On one hand, it means security guards have jobs when millions of Americans are filing for unemployment. The value of that paycheck in a crisis is real and shouldn’t be dismissed.
On the other hand, “essential” means you don’t get to stay home. You report to your post, interact with the public, and accept the health risk. The hourly wage for most unarmed guards in Memphis hasn’t changed. There’s been no hazard pay, no pandemic bonus, no additional compensation for the additional risk. A guard making $13 an hour before the pandemic is making $13 an hour during the pandemic, while doing a harder and more dangerous job.
Some national companies have announced temporary wage increases for essential workers. Allied Universal, the country’s largest security firm, announced a $1-per-hour “Hero Bonus” for its guards. Whether that’s sufficient is a matter of perspective. A dollar an hour adds up to maybe $40 a week for a full-time guard. It’s something. It’s not much.
The local and regional firms in Memphis have less financial cushion to offer bonuses, even modest ones. They’re dealing with revenue uncertainty and the very real possibility that some clients won’t pay their outstanding invoices on time. Cash flow, always tight in the security industry, is getting tighter.
What’s Happening to Crime
Here’s an angle that’s getting attention in law enforcement circles: what’s happening to crime in a city where everyone is supposed to stay home?
The early data from the first week of stay-at-home orders is preliminary, but the anecdotal reports from MPD officers and security professionals are consistent. Residential burglary is down, which makes sense because people are home. Commercial property crime may be increasing, particularly at businesses that are closed and unoccupied. Auto theft patterns are shifting as parking lots empty and residential streets fill with vehicles that sit unattended for days.
The concern among security professionals is that the longer the stay-at-home order lasts, the more the economic pressure builds, and the more that economic pressure translates into property crime. People who lose jobs and can’t pay rent don’t all turn to crime. Most don’t. But some do, and Memphis already had high property crime rates before the pandemic introduced massive unemployment to the equation.
The other concern is domestic violence. MPD has historically seen domestic violence calls increase during periods of economic stress and forced proximity. Stay-at-home orders create exactly those conditions. This doesn’t fall directly under private security’s scope, but it’s part of the safety picture that Memphis is facing.
How Security Companies Should Be Adapting
The companies that will come through this crisis with their businesses intact are the ones adapting fast. Here’s what the smart operators in Memphis are doing:
Communicating with clients daily. Not weekly. Daily. The situation changes too quickly for weekly check-ins. Clients need to know that their security provider is paying attention and adjusting.
Cross-training guards for new tasks. Temperature screening, crowd management at essential businesses, and enforcement of occupancy limits are new skills that guards need now. A 30-minute briefing before shift can cover the basics.
Sourcing PPE aggressively. Guards who feel protected perform better and stay healthy longer. Companies that can provide masks, gloves, and sanitizer to their field staff are protecting both their workforce and their clients.
Diversifying their client base. Companies that rely on a single sector are vulnerable. Firms that can shift guards from a closed hotel contract to an open grocery store contract preserve revenue and keep guards employed.
Maintaining documentation. Everything happening right now will have legal implications later. Workers’ compensation claims related to COVID-19 exposure, contract disputes over suspended services, and potential liability for guards who fall ill on duty will all require documentation that starts now.
What Comes Next
I don’t know. Nobody in Memphis does. The stay-at-home orders are in effect until further notice. Case counts in Tennessee are rising. The economic damage is real and accelerating. The security industry is adapting on the fly to conditions that didn’t exist a month ago.
What I do know is that security guards in Memphis are showing up to work every day while most of the city stays home. They’re standing at doors, walking patrols, and keeping properties safe for $13 or $15 or $20 an hour. They’re doing it without adequate protective equipment, without hazard pay in most cases, and without the recognition that other essential workers like nurses and first responders are receiving.
When this is over, and it will be over eventually, Memphis should remember who kept the lights on and the doors locked while everyone else sheltered in place. The guards deserve that much.