Six weeks into Phase 2 of the Back to Business plan, Memphis businesses are figuring out something that should have been obvious from the start: reopening is the easy part. Keeping people safe once the doors open? That’s where things get complicated.
Walk into any big-box retailer on Germantown Parkway right now and you’ll see it. A security guard at the front entrance, infrared thermometer in hand, waving customers through one at a time. A second guard near the back, counting heads with a clicker. Signs everywhere about masks and six-foot spacing. This wasn’t part of anyone’s job description six months ago.
The private security industry in Memphis is changing fast, and the companies that figured it out early are pulling ahead.
The New Job Description
When Shelby County moved to Phase 2 on May 18, restaurants could seat customers again, retail stores could open their fitting rooms, and gyms could let people back on the treadmills. The Shelby County Health Department released guidelines for each business type, and almost every one of them included the same requirement: screen people before they come inside.
That meant somebody had to stand at the door, point a thermometer at foreheads, ask a few health questions, and turn away anyone running a fever. Most businesses didn’t have extra staff for that. Their employees were already stretched thin from layoffs and reduced hours. Hiring and training new people for a temporary screening role didn’t make much sense either.
Security companies saw the gap immediately.
Allied Universal, which runs the largest private security operation in North America with over 235,000 employees, rolled out a health screening application called HELIAUS back in April. The app walks guards through CDC-based screening questions and logs every visitor interaction. By late May, the company was offering dedicated “COVID compliance officers” to Memphis clients. These were trained guards whose entire shift revolved around temperature checks, PPE enforcement, and social distancing monitoring.
“We started getting calls the week Phase 1 was announced,” said one Allied Universal branch manager in East Memphis who asked to remain anonymous because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. “By Phase 2, we couldn’t fill the positions fast enough.”
Who’s Doing What
Securitas, which operates a regional office on Poplar Avenue, has been running temperature screening details at medical offices and corporate buildings since mid-May. Their approach is more low-key than Allied’s app-driven model. Guards use handheld infrared thermometers and paper logs. A Securitas area supervisor I spoke with said the company trained around 40 Memphis-area guards on COVID screening protocols between April and June.
GardaWorld, the Canadian-owned firm with a growing Memphis presence, added screening services to its existing contracts at several distribution centers near the Memphis International Airport. Warehouse and logistics facilities along Democrat Road and Airways Boulevard have become some of the busiest screening sites in the county. Workers at these plants can’t do their jobs remotely, so every shift change means another round of temperature checks for dozens of employees filing through the gate.
Phelps Security, a smaller Tennessee-based firm, took a different approach. Instead of adding screening to guard duties, they created a standalone “health checkpoint” service that businesses can book by the week. A Phelps team shows up with folding tables, signage, thermometers, face shields, and disposable gloves. They set up a screening station and run it for the full business day. It’s been popular with restaurants and event venues that don’t need a full-time security presence but can’t manage screening on their own.
The Money Side
This isn’t charity work. Security companies are billing premium rates for COVID screening, and most clients are happy to pay.
A standard unarmed security guard in Memphis bills out at roughly $18 to $24 per hour, depending on the contract and the company. COVID screening guards are going for $25 to $35 per hour, according to three different security managers I talked with over the past two weeks. The bump covers the cost of PPE, additional training, and the higher risk that comes with close-contact work during a pandemic.
For a business that needs screening from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., that works out to around $300 to $420 per day. Over a month, you’re looking at $9,000 or more. That’s a real expense for a restaurant on South Main or a boutique on Broad Avenue that’s already bleeding cash from three months of shutdown.
Some businesses are splitting the cost. A strip mall on Summer Avenue pooled money from six tenants to hire one screening guard for the shared entrance. A group of medical practices near Baptist Memorial Hospital on Walnut Grove did the same thing.
Licensing and Legal Questions
Here’s where it gets murky. The Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, which handles security guard licensing through the Private Protective Services division, hasn’t issued any special guidance about COVID screening. Guards still need the same unarmed or armed registration they’ve always needed. There’s no separate “health screener” license category.
That creates a gray area. Is a person standing at a door with a thermometer performing a security function? Or a public health function? The answer matters because security guard work in Tennessee requires registration, background checks, and employer-sponsored training. If COVID screening doesn’t count as security work, then technically anyone can do it. Some businesses have hired temp workers through staffing agencies instead of security firms.
The security companies argue their guards bring something temps don’t: training in crowd management, conflict de-escalation, and incident reporting. When a customer with a 101-degree fever gets angry about being turned away from a Costco in Cordova, you want someone at the door who knows how to handle that conversation without it turning into a scene.
“We’ve had guards threatened over temperature checks,” one security supervisor told me. “Spit on, cursed out, had things thrown at them. These aren’t situations you put a temp worker in.”
What Businesses Are Actually Dealing With
The reality on the ground is messy. Shelby County’s health directives say businesses should screen employees and encourage customer screening, but enforcement is inconsistent. The Health Department can issue fines and even shut down businesses that violate reopening guidelines, but the department is also stretched thin running testing sites and contact tracing across a county of nearly one million people.
So some businesses screen aggressively and others barely try. You can walk into a gas station on Lamar Avenue with no mask and nobody says a word. Drive three miles north to a medical office on Union Avenue and you won’t get past the lobby without a temperature check, a health questionnaire, and a squirt of hand sanitizer.
The security industry’s bet is that screening will become standard, not optional, as COVID cases keep climbing. Shelby County reported over 12,000 confirmed cases through the end of June, with daily new case counts rising through the last two weeks. Mayor Strickland’s office issued a mask mandate for indoor public spaces on June 24, which created even more enforcement work for guards who were already managing temperature lines.
The Staffing Crunch
Finding enough guards to fill COVID screening shifts has been its own challenge. Memphis’s security industry was already dealing with high turnover before the pandemic. The pay for entry-level unarmed guard work (often between $10 and $13 per hour before the screening premium) wasn’t enough to keep people when Amazon’s fulfillment center on Holmes Road was hiring at $15.
The extra federal unemployment benefits, which add $600 per week to state payments through July 31, have also made recruiting harder. A guard working 40 hours at $12 per hour takes home $480 before taxes. Unemployment plus the federal supplement can pay more than that for staying home.
Several security company managers told me they’ve raised base pay by $1 to $3 per hour since April, with the screening premium on top. That’s helped, but the pipeline is still tight. Training a new guard takes about a week once the state background check clears, and the TDCI has been processing registrations at normal speed despite the pandemic. It’s one of the few state agencies that hasn’t slowed down significantly.
What Happens Next
Nobody knows how long screening will last. If daily case counts keep rising through the summer (and the trajectory in Shelby County suggests they will), businesses may be checking temperatures well into the fall. If a vaccine arrives or cases drop sharply, the whole screening apparatus could wind down in weeks.
For the security industry, the COVID pivot has been a rare bright spot in a brutal year. Guard companies that lost contracts when offices emptied out in March are making some of that revenue back through screening work. The question is whether this becomes a permanent service line or a temporary blip.
My guess? Even after COVID fades, businesses are going to think differently about entry screening. Hospitals and corporate offices may keep some version of health checks at their doors for years. Security companies that invested in training and technology now will be the ones positioned to keep those contracts.
For the moment, though, the guard at the door with the thermometer is the most visible sign that Memphis is trying to reopen without losing control of this virus. Whether that’s enough remains to be seen.