Security & guarding
Built around the way guarding actually works
Manned guarding, mobile patrols, event security and door supervision. On The Shift knows what an SIA licence is, what a check call is for, and why a patrol needs to be evidenced rather than assumed.
What we hear
The four that come up every time
- Licences expire quietly and nobody notices until a client audit
- Lone workers on night shifts with no reliable way to confirm they are safe
- Clients asking for proof a patrol happened, and a paper book being the only answer
- Hours disputed at the end of the month because check-in was a phone call
12.07%
holiday accrual applied correctly, per hour worked
Contract types
Every kind of contract you run
A retail park, two building sites, a dog unit and a Saturday festival — one system, not one spreadsheet each.
Static guarding
Gatehouse and entrance control, access logs, visitor management and a licensed officer on post around the clock.
Door supervisionSIA DS
Clubs, bars and the night-time economy: door teams, refusals and ejections logged on the night, with a licence check before anyone works a door.
Security dog unitsNASDU
Handler and dog logged as a single deployable unit, with certification dates and rest periods tracked against the shift.
Mobile patrol & alarm response
Multi-site rounds with GPS-stamped arrival and departure, lock-up and unlock, keyholding and response times you can show a client.
Construction site security
Plant and materials protection, hoarding checks, delivery gate control and the site diary an insurer will accept after a theft.
Warehouse & logistics
Distribution centres and industrial estates: goods-in checks, trailer seals, shrinkage reporting and search records held per shift.
Retail & shopping centres
Loss prevention, detentions and civil recovery paperwork, plus banning notices and incident packs shared to centre management.
Event & crowd security
Pit and barrier teams, ejections and capacity counts — with a licence check on every officer before the gates open.
CCTV & remote monitoring
Remote video response, alarm verification and out-of-hours cover, with operator activity logged against the same site record as the guards.
Corporate front of house
Concierge and reception security, where the officer is the first person a client's customers meet — presentation and training tracked accordingly.
Government & public buildings
Public-sector contracts with tighter vetting and audit expectations — screening files, clearances and access logs held to the standard the contract demands.
Vacant & void property
Empty commercial and residential stock: sealed-unit checks, squatter and fly-tipping reports, and evidence dated for the insurer and the landlord.
What you’d use
The parts that matter for security & guarding
Rota & scheduling
Drag shifts from reusable patterns, fill gaps from a list of who is actually available, and publish to every phone at once. If someone is not qualified to work a site, the rota says so before you assign them — not after.
- Patterns, not copy-paste. Nights, four-on-four-off, weekend cover — save the shape once and drop it onto any week.
- Clashes caught as you type. Double bookings, insufficient rest between shifts and unqualified assignments are refused at the point of the drag.
Lone worker safety
On The Shift asks each lone worker to confirm they are safe at an interval you set. If they do not answer within the grace period, your control room is told — automatically, with their name, their site and when they were last seen.
- The phone buzzes, even when the app is closed. Reminders are scheduled by the operating system, so they arrive whether or not the app is open and whether or not there is signal.
- One button to raise the alarm. SOS sends the guard's location and a note straight to the office, and marks the shift on the live board.
Compliance & vetting
Track SIA licences, right to work, DBS certificates and anything else you need. Set which documents block scheduling, and On The Shift simply will not let an unqualified person be rostered.
- Chased automatically. Reminders go out before something expires, to the person who holds it, on the schedule you set.
- Blocking or warning, per document. An expired first-aid certificate might warn. An expired SIA licence should stop the assignment dead.
Patrols & checkpoints
Place NFC tags or QR stickers at checkpoints, numbered in the order they should be visited. Guards tap each one as they go, and you get a timestamped route rather than a signature in a book.
- NFC or QR, same tag. Tap a phone on the tag, or scan the printed code. One token behind both, so a damaged sticker is not a dead checkpoint.
- In sequence, on purpose. Checkpoints are numbered. Skipping one is visible, which is the entire point of a patrol record.
Case study
Cut rota admin from two evenings a week to under an hour
“The bit I didn't expect was the arguments that stopped happening. Nobody debates hours any more, because the hours came from the door.”
Operations Director, Northgate Security
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