When asked about their biggest challenge in the coming year, security integrators and manufacturers alike often say the same thing: attracting workers. In the access control space, an industry in transition from the “old” way of doing things to cloud, smart buildings, cyber security and more, the challenge is even greater. On the tech side, they often need to straddle two worlds — hardware and software — and finding someone versed and interested in both is tough in an era where the Googles and Apples of the world are the expectation.
“I think within the integration channel there is a split in the abilities,” says Richard Goldsobel of Continental Access, a division of Napco Security Technologies. “There are some senior people with great knowledge, but they may have lost their middle-level knowledge base. They may have some Millennials that know Windows but they don’t understand the hardware side of access control. They have never been exposed to anything like it. They may have difficulty installing or understanding how their installation affects the use of the product. When we are training them, a younger tech will say, ‘Can you just remote in and set this up for me?’ It is a really fundamental shift in the type of employee the integration channel can afford to pay. Educating them, and keeping them around long enough that the education pays off may be the biggest shift and hurdle in the industry.”