security guard

security supervisor

responsable marketing et communication

agent de sécurité

site supervisor

I can understand this being a frustrating career for those who have responsibilities in life such as rent, bills, children, etc. but could be great for students in school or those who live at home with family. While I was fortunate enough to have a permanent full-time post upon hire I can see it being a problem for those who aren't given that opportunity. A lot of people start part-time and as a casual on-call person until an opportunity for full-time comes up. I guess I was in the right place at the right time. Seniority seems to be respected at the post position you are given but you could be replaced by someone who held the position before you and had remained within the company.

There can be dry periods at times at the Sudbury location in terms of extra hours but should you prove yourself a reliable go-to-person when there is opportunities to grab extra shifts you can make decent money. Although, you will sacrifice having days off for sometimes up-to 2 weeks straight. You can expect short changes from going to days to nights (or vice versa) within 6-12 hours in-between for sleep. Even double shifts that can go up to 12-15 hours should you chose to accept them. The best practice is not to say "no" often when these chances come up or you could lose work ethic respect from management. Your work locations can be all over town and sometimes even out of town should a contract come up for that (with rental/company vehicle, gas, lodge and travel expenses paid).

There isn't much opportunity for advancement unless you have good qualifications that they are looking for. Ideally with police foundations or actual police experience, management experience, all company training, and so forth.The more you learn and have under your belt in relation to this field the better. All other guards can expect opportunities for overtime or a variety of different work sites to work in.

Management can be at times disorganized but it does look like they are doing what they can for a team of 3 at the branch office. There is definitely room for improvement here. However, my experience with site supervisors was more positive and I've never had issues with any of them as of this writing. Very approachable and seemed to be trained well.

I was not on salary and was paid by the hour. Regular guards can expect to earn between $11-12/hr for fixed permanent locations. You can earn more doing the various contracts that come up which could last sometimes for days, weeks or months. Each one pays differently where you can get earn anywhere from $13-$18 or even close to $30 depending on your qualifications. There is benefits for this job after 3 months of employment.

It helps to own a vehicle with this job and have your full licence. Although, it's not necessarily required if you don't have these or are working towards them.

Overall, I can't actually decide whether  to recommend this job or not to anyone that's interested. I can tell you that for smaller towns there is less competition in terms of multiple people aiming towards the same positions within the company. Bigger cities have bigger work forces. This can be a frustrating career for those with life responsibilities but a great experience for those interested in this field or looking to get into the police force.

1.G4S head offices in Alberta:They don't answer the phone.You can leave a message,they don't call you back most of the time.They don't answer emails if they don't want to.
2.Kearl Lake,Alberta: A horrible place to work as a G4S guard.
3.Most G4S supervisors and managers are a bunch of rude,uneducated and uncaring people.
4.Most supervisors keep female guards at the office,for obvious reasons.Male guards have to work outside in the cold,while supervisors are staying at the office most of the time,flirting with female guards.
5.Security guards at G4S are not considered humans.They should tolerate disrespect,abuse,racism,discrimination,etc.
6.Most G4S supervisors and managers backstab anybody they want,just to get rid of those people who know what they are up to.
7.Many Guards have problems about their plane tickets to/from the camp,and their accommodation(not booked prior to their trip).
8.The male guards are not allowed to use the washroom at one of the sites.They have to walk a long distance,crossing 5 lanes to get to another washroom,outside.Sexism and feminism are obvious,there.
9.There are problems with schedules at Kearl.Favorite guards are given the easy sites.Other guards maily get harder sites,working outside and night shifts,for most rotations.
10.G4S Supervisors and managers don't let guards have their legal number and duration of breaks,most of the time.
11.G4S trucks are dirty inside and out.
12.Flights from the camp are delayed,most rotations.
13.More than 90% of G4S guards quit their job at Kearl.Most other guards get fired.Rarely any guard will stay there for long.
14.Female guards get male guards fired so easily.They do it all the time.
15.G4S is not organized.They ask you to do some tasks for the first time,wikthout training.They always give you a hard time or just fire you on the spot.
16.So many people at G4S spy on each other.They report everything.They lie,backstab,pretend,suck up,gossip,etc.You will meet the most evil,uncivilized and aggressive people at G4S,at the camp.
17.Most G4S supervisors and managers at Kearl are good at doing 3 things everyday:Smoking,giving the guards a hard time and flirting with women.
18.IOL(Imperial Oil) has Fluor Security,watching over G4S all the time.Fluor is mainly army freaks who do nothing but harassing G4S employees.
19.G4S pays less to some experieced guards and more to some new guards.Discrimination...
20.You have to do so much paperwork at Kearl that you feel you never left school.
21.Safety has gone too far.And I feel so safe NOT working at Kearl anymore!

I will continue informing you in detail,in the near future.

I can only speak for unarmored guards.
This company will hire anyone off the streets with a security license, so be prepared to work with a circus of clowns, including management. There are some good people, but the insane number of clowns give the company a bad reputation. Management is sneaky and two-faced, you never know what to expect from them. Luckily, the guards are unionized (under the CAW) because you will need to go up against management for almost everything.

Most jobs are 12 hour shifts, with no breaks, and straight nights (or at least rotating shifts) and make minimum wage. Some sites also force you to use your own car as a patrol vehicle, and the gas/mileage allowance for these positions is very cheap.

The hardest part of the job is usually sitting in a chair for 12 hours straight without falling asleep.

The job security is awful. I have already been out of a job twice in the past two years with this company, because they are losing security contracts with companies faster than they are getting them. If this happens to you, don't expect the company to lay you off, they will cut your hours down to 6 hour/week so you are ineligible for EI benefits. If you are lucky enough to have less hours than that, you will have to beg them for your ROE to make an unemployment claim.

They will then call you with a less-than 2 hour notice and give you the worst shifts they have, and will not take "No" as an answer.

Kiss up to management and do not get on their bad side, or they will make your life a living nightmare and you should be fine.

P.s. Your uniform will take months to come in when you first start. Once you have it, it will not likely take long for it to fall apart/rip, and will take a lot of begging, pleading, and phone calls to get a replacement. There are employees working without a sweater or jacket in the middle of winter.

P.P.S. Always check your pay stubs, they will often be incorrect and missing hours. When they are, be prepared to jump through hoops of fire to get your earnings. (6-12 month battle of constant phone calls and emails to and from 10 different people on the other side of the province)

It's hard to write your opinion about the workplace when it turns into your home into your own everyday life.When you are a group and at the same time a family with your colleagues with the chiefs and with your manager.
First of all every day was a different and special day for me.I had to face a lot of customers a lot of troubleshootings and a lot of danger cause the situation in Greece has gone worse since the financial crisis.All this situation seems so easy to me cause all the stress and all the pressure gone out from the moment i got in the company building and had the first greeting with my manager and my colleagues.We were giving each other so much strength so the day could go on.We organized everything before and we share the job in sections so it could be easier for all of us even in tough situations.
The workplace culture was first the safety of the employees then the immediate and efficient customer service and as a result only the success and customer satisfaction.
The most enjoyable part of the job was in the summer time when we had to fix thousands of machines in Greek islands which are overcrowded in the summer and you combine
 job with the magnificent view of the Aegean Sea and the mentality of Greek island
The hardest part of the job was when you thing that you ve done everything then a new troubleshooting arrived and you were totally out of time so many times we lost the ship that will transfer us back to the base.
I am grateful to God i learned so many things all these years in the family of G4S. I learned the teamwork the respect to the customer to face every hard situation with a warm smile and gain experience day by day to face the wose situations.
My knowledge and my experience i had the honor to share it with new employees at the training seminars which i did to them when the headoffice gave me this competence.
I quit my job cause i had to follow my family to the journey of life in Canada.
I am ready for new job challenges to give my best cause i believe when you work with the best there are no limits.

I want to start out by saying I don’t have it out for this company, they were good enough to employee me and give me a paycheque (most of the time). But the truth is I’ve never dealt with this level of greed and lack of respect from an employer, all you are to them is a number from which they make (and take) money from. You will find small amounts of money missing from your cheques (that’s if you get it) meanwhile they pay poverty wages and refuse to give you raises (even breaking contract to do so) they were getting $22 an hour from the client and were giving only $14 to myself and fellow guards, while providing no protective equipment for high risk sites, have fun guarding a bank without a protective vest or offensive weapon and if you bring any of this up with the useless “food workers union” that represents you, they will ALWAYS side with the company and offer garbage medical benefits that will have you going to a short list of quack doctors almost always in Hamilton, oh and don’t forget the mandatory $30 union due every month (good luck trying to divert that). The final nail in the coffin for me was them not paying out vacation pay even though they are taking it off our checks, when confronted about it they gave three different slimy explanations that were all bogus, even the government said that it was illegal but couldn’t do anything because of the union we pay for. Bottom line, don’t work or even apply to this company (at least not the Hamilton branch) they are having staffing issues for a reason and will only cause you grief and despair. Also I left two weeks ago and still haven’t gotten my final pay, so at least they’re consistent. 

PS I only scratched the surface of the nonsense this company will put you through.

When i was hired I was informed that I would be placed in a full time position guaranteed, for the first month i worked for no more than 2 days . My last location there I had requested a location somewhat close to home as i was promised in the interview and I was placed at a location outside of the city on the opposite side of Calgary from me, my commute in the morning was an hour on the best day but usually ended up being close to 2 and a half hours. I worked 12 hour days which i was expecting in a security company but ended up spending 16 hours on average a day working and getting there/back then the rest sleeping so i could work the next day i didnt get to see my family for more that 5 minutes a day and when i saw them they were asleep. when i requested a closer location to home i was pulled off the location I was on and left without any work for 5 months even though i kept contacting checking on progress for new locations and nothing came of it until i received a letter in the mail that read: our records show that you have not worked for 5 months with us and we will assume that if you do not contact us before said date we will be terminating your employment. upon reading this i immediately sent an email to inform hr that I have been trying to get a shift with the company and that i would like to continue working with them but never received any confirmation that the email was even received so i went into the office to discuss the matter face to face to hear that they had apparently responded 3 times to my email however i had never received anything and they informed me that my employment had been terminated and that my final check would be in 2 weeks later when i went in to pick my check the employee behind the desk couldnt find it and proceeded to tell me that it had been lost. it took them close to another month to find my check.

First off, if you are an experienced guard, RUN! They will not recognize your experience. They will toss you wherever there is a void to fill and start you at the same rate as someone who is fresh off their 40 hour course which is minimum wage. I spent (wasted) 3 years with this company. No raise during my entire tenure until the Ontario government mandated the $14/hr minimum wage. I was hired for upscale condo duty full-time and was issued one pair of pants, one shirt and a dirty blazer in full-on Toronto summer heat. I was promised to be at the top of the list for the proper amount of uniforms but it took a call from the CLIENT to get things moving. Not a good first impression. I brought my knowledge, 10 years of front line security experience in two provinces, another 10 in customer service and all I got was grief. No chance for advancement. My CSM was incompetent to say the least. If you expect management to have your back, this is not the company for you. They expect perfection and pay you peanuts. I really enjoyed my last site which is where I spent most of my 3 years but I became miserable because of the company I was working for. Long story short, I was hired by the competition. My experience was immediately recognized, paid above average starting wage with an above average wage bump after my probation. Advancement is definitely available. I picked my own location AND my preferred shift for my position. Management is very organized. I get great vibes from my current company and expect I will be with them for many years.

If you don't have any ambition to develop your skills or if you're not looking for a long term career then you should apply to G4S Secure Solutions Aviation division. The company has no direction on how to fix the problems that exist such as poor working environment, low employee satisfaction and lack of communication because of their need to know basis attitude. Management believes that everyone is replaceable therefore they do not care about retaining good employees. The attrition is so bad that you see 1-2 people per month resign from the office/management staff and these people are not even in a fast food, retail or a sales environment. If you look up past job postings for the last 2 years you will see that they keep recruiting for the same positions because people work there for a bit then quit cause of frustration. The schedules they push out to the screening officers is horrible too. There is absolutely no consideration for work life balance. They create schedules where you start at 3:30am one day then you could start at 5:30am another day within the same week. Bonuses are only paid out to specific groups and if you're not part of that group you get nothing even though you work just as hard if you want to. On the scheduling team, we don't really know what's going on with the operation since it's a need to know basis. All we do everyday is process shift trades, print out rosters, filing paperwork and update spreadsheets which a trained monkey could do.

I worked for this company for nearly 2 years. Currently a college student.

Pros: 
- Very flexible company. I was a floater (someone who picks up random shifts) my entire time with the company. There was a period where I didn't work for 4 months (no contact with the company either). I called them one day for a shift and it was as if nothing happened. I guess it's because they're so big that they don't recognize you. They (almost) always have shifts that need to be filled.
- Never messed up my paycheque. The process for being paid is very simple, unlike other security companies, who often do mess up your pay.
- Supervisors almost never came around. This made the job much more enjoyable. I can count on one finger the amount of times they came by. And all of those sites were high profile sites. Anything not high profile they almost certainly won't come around.

Cons: 
- The most well known sites aren't very good. At those sites you either have to stand the entire time or literally just sit there. The company does have good sites but you have to ask around. This is why I recommend making friends with a scheduler. Trust me, they'll help you out if you're willing to help them.
- The pay is not good. Unless you're a full time employee, the pay is almost minimum wage or a little above it.
- Schedulers can be very hard to reach. Some of them will flat out ignore your calls if they don't like you. My favourite scheduler also trained new employees, so sometimes he wasn't in the office that day, and I either had to call the next day or deal with the other schedulers.

If you're looking for causal work, then I would recommend this company. If you're looking for a career in security, this might be a start but the chances of advancement are slim.

I really enjoyed working here the first year, then I don't know what happened in management but it went down hill very fast. Scheduling makes this job extremely stressful, to get a day off you pretty much need someone on their death bed before they will give you a day off. You need to be here minium 5 years to MAYBE just MAYBE get a Saturday or Sunday off. They also implemented some tracking devices you need to punch in where you are going so they monitor your every movement even if you go to the washroom. Flexibility used to be fantastic till G4s decided they didn't like the shift give aways and made everyone take full time lines so no one can give away. You will also get in trouble for give away shifts even though it Is our right and in the union hand book 

They are very behind the times everything is still done by paper and pen. 

If you speak French you will get very bad shifts as they have different bidding lines (shifts) for them. People who have been here 5+ year who are French still get terrible shifts. They get shifts as if they just started.

Students will be screwed over, you will definitely not get a part time line (shift). They do not accommodate students. In fack they accommodate no one. 

There is room for advancement into management but I suggest you be very good as a screening officer and make sure everyone upstairs likes you, do as they say and raise no questions. 

You are not a Human being to the people upstairs in that office all you are is a number, they don't care about your life outside of work, and its extremely sad.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Security guard 14 salaries reported	$17.94 per hour
Security supervisor 3 salaries reported	$21.00 per hour
Responsable marketing et communication 2 salaries reported	$22.50 per hour
Agent de sécurité 2 salaries reported	$18.74 per hour
Site supervisor 1 salary reported	$17.75 per hour

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