Post Orders

Post orders are the written document that defines exactly what an officer assigned to a specific post is expected to do — hours, patrol routes, access-control rules, emergency contacts, and the boundaries of the officer's authority on that site. They're specific to the post, not a generic company manual; a lobby post's orders look nothing like a construction site's, even if both are staffed by the same security company.

On a real site, good post orders answer the questions an officer will actually face at 2 a.m. with no supervisor immediately reachable — who to call for a medical emergency, what to do if a tenant is locked out, whether the officer is authorized to detain someone or only observe and report. Vague or outdated post orders push officers to improvise in exactly the situations where consistent, pre-decided procedure matters most.

A common and serious failure is post orders that were written once at contract start and never updated as the property, its tenants, or its risks changed — a set of orders that still references a since-departed property manager as the emergency contact, or a patrol route that no longer matches the current building layout, is worse than no written orders at all because it gives false confidence.

Post orders are typically reviewed and acknowledged by each officer assigned to the post, referenced during shift briefings and pass-downs, and revised by the account manager or post commander whenever the site's procedures change — a live document, not a binder that sits unopened.