Outsourcing for short-term guarding requirements can feel like a last resort, but it doesn’t have to. With the right tech and the right team overseeing everything, emergency and temporary guards offer flexibility and resilience – without compromising on quality or control.

Tackling the trust gap in Emergency & Temporary Guarding 

Outsourcing your short term guarding requirements is often met with hesitation, and rightly so. When you hand over a critical part of your security operation to a third party, questions inevitably follow: 

“Will they even turn up? Are they being paid fairly? How will I know what’s happening on-site?” 

These aren’t hypotheticals – they impact your business directly. Security is built on trust, and too often, the sector falls short. 

That’s why at The Keyholding Company, we’ve made it our mission to raise the bar. By combining robust technology, transparent processes and a trusted partner network, we help our clients outsource their guarding needs with confidence – turning a perceived risk into a real strategic advantage. 

How to guarantee quality and compliance when outsourcing guards

1. Get immediate confidence with pre-vetted security personnel

Managing roster gaps or securing urgent cover is a big challenge. When you’re looking at outsourced solutions, concerns around inconsistent practices can leave you nervous about whether standards will be upheld.  

Over the past 25 years, we’ve built a  carefully vetted network of 200 national, ACS-accredited service partners with 11,000 qualified officers. This robust, regulated network enables us to respond quickly to urgent needs across the UK, without compromising on standards.  

When an officer’s SIA licence is uploaded to our platform by a Service Partner, any incorrect, invalid, or expired licence is automatically rejected, preventing confirmation until it’s updated or resolved. 

This ensures that all operatives are not only licensed but also verified as the individual they claim to be, supported by our stringent compliance checks. 

In addition, our AI-assisted tools visually reconfirm the physical licence against the declared number from the Service Partner, providing a secondary layer of assurance. 

Every officer deployed through TKC is directly employed by an ACS-accredited provider, paid through PAYE, and fully qualified with an SIA license.

Danny Vant – Managing Director, The Keyholding Company

Unlike many others in the sector, we have a zero-tolerance policy on subcontracting by our partners. 

These aren’t just claims – over time, we’ve developed rigorous enforcement mechanisms. Our specialist Guarding Operations Team uses the DeepStream platform to process documentation, track compliance and conduct regular face-to-face audits with every partner.  

We also run continuous spot-checks on deployed officers – covering everything from competency, to uniform standards, right to work and proof of punctual attendance – so nothing is left to chance. 

2. Maintain total visibility and control with integrated digital tools

There’s nothing worse than being left in the dark, wondering if everything is going to plan.  

We’ve built an award-winning process that makes it possible to leave that experience behind. It’s now easy to monitor every aspect of your guarding deployments while they’re happening, access information about your officer, and review performance at the completion of the shift.  

When your officer arrives for their shift, they’ll book on/off within a geofenced site boundary via our Guarding App. If they leave the boundary, the officer will receive an instant notification. 

An officer’s movements can be tracked in real-time, you’ll be instantly alerted if any incidents occur, and you can set escalation processes ahead of time to ensure any response is fast and effective. 

We’ve fully digitised the Daily Occurrence Book (DOB), meaning officers no longer need to complete paper reports during each shift. They record events to the eDOB via the app in real-time, saving vast amounts of officer and admin time (as well as driving up data quality) and giving you unparalleled oversight.  

Every photo an officer uploads is automatically checked by AI. The system flags missing or incorrect uniform, mismatched SIA license details or anything that doesn’t match the job brief. Location metadata is even cross-referenced with the geofence to confirm the officer is exactly where they should be. Unlike traditional manual checks – which are often delayed and only cover a fraction of deployed staff – our AI flags potential issues instantly, as soon as the job begins. This means we can catch and resolve problems before a client could, delivering greater assurance that standards are being met every time.  

You’ll be able to view all shift activity and incidents via your platform dashboard, and after each shift you’ll receive a comprehensive job report which collates everything together. 

3. Hands-on expertise at every stage

Delivering exceptional service isn’t just about successfully deploying guards – it’s about embedding quality assurance into every step.

Danny Vant

While our tech offers powerful improvements to speed, efficiency and detail, it can’t function without human touchpoints. The TKC specialist Guarding Operations Team provides hands-on oversight and expertise throughout the E&T management process, ensuring every aspect is carried out correctly and to a high standard. 

Rather than springing into action only when something goes wrong, TKC takes a proactive approach to quality assurance and compliance. 

Our Guarding app – developed by our 30 person-strong in-house team – is key to this. 

Before a shift begins, officers receive detailed site briefs through the app, including health and safety protocols, risk assessments, and duty instructions.  

Once on-site, they complete a Point of Work Risk Assessment (PoWRA), and can call our team directly if they encounter any issues. This blend of autonomy and oversight ensures safety and accountability. 

Beyond deployment, we mandate that our partners conduct monthly Site Visit Reports (SVRs) to deliver an additional layer of quality assurance.  

On longer assignment lifecycles, our partners visit the officer to check they’re safe and well, and that they have the right information and equipment to carry out their duties productively. Where possible, the partner will also speak with customers during the visit to make sure they’re receiving the level of service they expect and are satisfied with delivery. 

The SVRs are completed via the app, and you have full visibility into the completed reports for extra confidence in the service being delivered, and you can give direct feedback to the partner and their officer, which is fed into the report. 

To add another human layer of oversight, the guarding team conducts hundreds of quality spot checks each month, monitoring SVRs to ensure they are being completed regularly and to the highest standard, reinforcing accountability at every level. The guarding team can also speak to either party retrospectively if they feel something needs to be discussed or improved. 

Unleashing the benefits of emergency and temporary guarding services

Outsourcing security guards doesn’t have to raise alarm bells. In fact, it can be your secret weapon. The key to success? Intelligent blending of the human and the digital. 

Reliable outsourced guarding allows you to build:

– Resilience in the face of staff shortages 

– Adaptability to seasonal, event-related or emergency staff demand spikes 

– Flexibility to scale your workforce as your property portfolio develops 

When underpinned by the right partner and platform, outsourced guarding delivers all of this – without compromising on quality or coverage. 

With TKC, this all comes without the usual trade-offs. We completed over 80,000 jobs this year, varying from short notice assignments to more complex requirements such as SC cleared officers, at a shift fulfilment rate of 99.3%. 

We believe those numbers speak for themselves.