Dive Brief:
- Securitas Security Services USA seeks to fill 1,000 new positions in California, partly to aid businesses’ emergency responses to COVID-19, the company announced April 7.
- "It is becoming increasingly common for our clients to request our assistance in supporting their own emergency management efforts, such as guarding hospitals, healthcare facilities, clinics and grocery stores," said Kimberly Carson, Pacific region vice president of human resources, in a statement.
- As more locations close due to stay-at-home orders, companies are increasingly concerned about the safety of assets and associates, Securitas said.
Dive Insight:
The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted some employers to ramp up hiring. CVS, for example, aims to hire 50,000 workers for full-time, part-time and temporary positions to match customer demand for services, the company announced March 23. But many others have laid off or furloughed whole swaths of their workforces. More than 6 million U.S. workers filed for unemployment the week ending April 4; close to 10 million filed the two weeks prior.
Securitas’ hiring is partly in response to a growing need for emergency personnel by employers who may not typically require it, such as grocery stores. Employers, however, may have already struggled with emergency management before the pandemic struck. According to a survey from law firm Blank Rome, more than 70% of companies had no emergency response plan in place prior to the spread of the novel coronavirus — and many now are forced to "start from scratch."
Unfortunately for employers, U.S. workers are not confident in their employers’ abilities to handle the business impact of the coronavirus outbreak, according to a survey from Eagle Hill Consulting. While half of workers surveyed said their employer has the technology and training in place to transition to fully remote work, only 35% said their organization will have the resilience to face those challenges long-term.
