Key Points of Report Writing

When you write reports, your aim is to convey information to a specific audience or individuals. These reports serve as a means of communication through which you can describe a situation, setting, or condition to various parties, including the Client, your Supervisor, company management, authorities like the police or Ministry representatives, and others.

Reports should be composed using plain and straightforward language. Avoid using abbreviations, slang, profanity, or specialized jargon unless it is pertinent to the report and is being quoted from someone else’s words.

The industry standard for report writing involves presenting information from a third-party perspective in the past tense. This means referring to yourself as “the writer” in the reports and describing all information as if it has already taken place, which is the case by the time you record your report.

In other words, instead of writing, “I am walking down a hallway,” a Security Professional would write, “The writer patrolled the fourth-floor hallway.” The first-person pronoun “I” is replaced with the third-person term “the writer,” and the entire entry is composed in the past tense. This approach helps maintain and demonstrate an impartial perspective in your reports.

Report Writing – Basic Format (Form)

Every report you submit must include specific information, and most employers provide standardized report forms for Guards to complete, tailored to the nature of each report. At a minimum, all reports should contain the following information.

Site name and address
Date/time of report
Details or body of the report
Security Guard’s name (printed name of the person completing the report)
Security Guard’s Signature

The required information in a report may vary based on its type or format, especially when it pertains to an incident or occurrence. This necessary information encompasses:

Date/time of occurrence (versus date/time of report completion)
Specific location of occurrence
Occurrence type

Additionally, some reports may include optional details like “Attention to” or “Confidential to.” Furthermore, various report types exist, including incident reports or “Special Occurrence Reports” (referred to as SOR).

(Special Occurrence Report) or Incident Report

An S.O.R. is typically created whenever a situation arises that deviates from the usual activities or conditions at the site. Site policies often determine when to generate such reports, and this includes instances of critical occurrences.

Critical occurrences encompass a range of situations and can include, but are not restricted to, the following scenarios: medical emergencies, such as severe injuries, major vehicle accidents, use of force incidents, sudden deaths, and major crimes like assaults, burglaries, robberies, and bomb threats.

Fire or Explosion, Gas or Fuel Leak, Chemical Spill, Elevator Entrapment
Lost, Missing or Stolen Pass Cards or Keys
Major Flood, HVAC (Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning) Failure
Media Onsite
Building Collapse
Any Lost/Found Child Incident not resolved in a routine manner
Unauthorized Move Outs
Any Civil Disturbance, Demonstration or Unexpected Strike

How did you learn of the occurrence, event or circumstance?

Irrespective of the nature of the incident you’re reporting, the information about it reached you through some means. This could involve being dispatched to investigate an unknown disturbance or occurrence, receiving a complaint about a specific activity or individual on your site, hearing unusual sounds like mechanical failures, yelling, or banging during your patrol, or observing certain conditions like fluid on the floor or signs of possible intrusion like tool marks on a door.

Regardless of the type of information or the way you came across it, it’s crucial to consistently report how the incident came to your attention. This is achieved by using a preamble when submitting all Special Occurrence Reports (S.O.R.) or Incident Reports.

“At the above noted time, date and location while….”

Following the initial statement, you should include relevant details about how the incident or matter came to your attention. The specific wording will depend on the circumstances, which may include… “

monitoring C.C.T.V. from the control room” or “while responding to an alarm” or “while investigating a complaint” or “while conducting a regular perimeter patrol” or “while conducting a floor by floor patrol” or “while checking the mechanical room”, etc
The writer of the report next inserts the specific wording of the occurrence they are reporting on, then concludes the report

For instance, a report filed by a Guard who was sent to address a complaint from an office tower tenant could be written like this: “At the specified time, on the indicated date and at the given location, in response to a dispatch from MNO Services to investigate a complaint, the Security Professional encountered an individual subsequently identified as John Doe. Mr. Doe was observed shouting offensive language at Mr. Dae, the owner of Pacman Realestate Development.”

The interrogatories – Five W’s and the H

There are five inquiries that must be addressed to ensure the creation of effective reports. These questions are often referred to as the “interrogatories” because they involve interrogative-type inquiries. They are also fundamental components of comprehensive notes that must be recorded at the moment of an incident. The underlying idea is that providing answers to these questions helps document accurate and factual information.

Who

What
Where
When
Why
How

You should consider these questions as a framework when jotting down notes during routine patrols, when gathering statements, and when conducting investigations throughout your shift. When you routinely apply the five W’s and the H, you will create thorough notes and, in turn, produce more effective reports.

Actions Taken

To effectively conclude an occurrence report, it’s essential to document the steps you took in response to the incident. These actions can encompass your personal efforts to resolve the situation, like “the writer positioned a bucket under the leaking faucet and forwarded this report for review.” Alternatively, it might involve reporting the issue to someone else for necessary action or verbally and in writing, depending on the nature and severity of the incident.

DOR or Shift Summary (Daily Log)

A summary of your daily activities, often referred to as a DOR or Daily Occurrence Report, includes shift logs. Some locations may utilize a distinct form for routine maintenance matters like minor lighting problems or general maintenance. In contrast, at other sites, these issues are documented within the DOR or SOR, depending on the specific site’s procedures.

Briefing reports – Information sharing

Certain locations may utilize a formal briefing log or pass-along book to communicate crucial information among different Guards and shifts. It’s crucial to understand that these are intended for formal communication and not for addressing disputes or expressing grievances.

Relevant information could encompass important verbal directives from the client or the company, noteworthy events that need to be shared with other Guards, or incidents that could have implications when the next shift takes over. Some briefings occur in verbal form, such as routine interactions between a senior Supervisor and the client, during which the senior security representative receives directives for the entire security department to act upon.

Arrest Reports – Ministry Required Use of Force Reports

Whenever an arrest is made or a Security Guard employs force, there are mandatory reports that must be filled out using a precise format, including a Use of Force report form mandated by the Ministry. These reports must be accurately completed and submitted promptly after an arrest or use of force, ideally before the Security Guard concludes their shift for the day. More comprehensive information on this topic will be provided later in this manual, specifically in section 5.7 on Use of Force Theory and the associated training program.

Legal Implications & Confidentiality

Security Guards must be acutely aware of the potential issues and considerations associated with their responsibility to create an official written record of events transpiring at a client’s property. The reports, irrespective of their format, and any notes drafted by Security Guards in connection with their duties and actions on a site are compiled and submitted with the explicit understanding that they constitute an official record of the transpired events.

It is an established practice and expectation that these records will be recorded in an impartial and factual manner, devoid of any personal bias, subjective opinions, or emotional influence. This rigorous adherence to objectivity is essential to ensure the reports are as equitable and precise as possible. The gravity of maintaining these standards is intensified by the formal, factual nature of these reports and their ethical and legal implications.

Failing to comply with these established guidelines is a severe violation with tangible consequences. Your reports may be subject to audits, including those concerning health and safety issues. They can contain crucial evidence presented in court proceedings and encompass sensitive, confidential information, such as the identities of crime victims and perpetrators, medical data, or information about site activities or conditions that could jeopardize someone’s well-being if disclosed to unauthorized individuals.

Protecting this information is not just a matter of professional responsibility for Security Guards; it may also be subject to protection under other laws like the Personal Information and Protection of Electronic Data Act (PIPEDA), which will be addressed in the section of this manual bearing that title within the training program.

Writing Basics

All reports must conform to fundamental principles of correct grammar and spelling. In instances where Security Guards are providing services in a Northern Ontario community where the majority of the population primarily speaks French or is bilingual in both official languages, it may be deemed appropriate to draft reports in Canada’s official language of French.

However, given our focus on delivering services in Southern and Central Ontario, it is suitable to prepare reports in English, as the majority of individuals in this region are proficient in this language. Beyond adhering to fundamental grammatical rules, such as maintaining consistency in gender and noun/pronoun usage, Security Guards must also possess a grasp of how and why certain words are used together, as well as an understanding of sentence and paragraph structure.

Exceptional reports, akin to well-structured essays, feature not only an introduction, body, and conclusion but also adhere to the “Five C’s” principles.

Clarity – the reporter must make it clear to the reader of the report what and who the report is about

Conciseness – Being concise is keeping appropriately brief enough by getting to the point right away. Use only as much dialogue as required

Completeness – Reports must contain all of the information previously covered in this section by starting with a preamble or introduction answering the Five W’s and H, as well as concluding with the action taken

Correctness – The report must be as correct (or accurate) as possible in addition to the other concepts of the five C’s by ensuring all of the relevant information regarding the subject is captured

Courtesy – The concept of courtesy in report writing is a reference to being fair and keeping bias, either personal bias or the bias of others out of the report. The report is factual, only

As previously mentioned in this training, it’s crucial for reports to follow chronological order to maintain clarity. Events naturally unfold in a specific sequence, and if this order is disrupted, the report becomes confusing. Another common pitfall for writers is introspection, which involves looking within oneself for information. When writing fact-based reports, yielding to introspection can introduce bias.

In your reports, steer clear of emotional language and simply describe events as they occur. Instead of stating, “The two men were angry,” you should describe that “the two men involved in the incident were shouting obscenities at each other.” Then proceed to provide specific details about the circumstances and the words used.

It’s important to exercise caution with written language in reports because the emotional nuances typically conveyed in face-to-face conversations are absent. In the example above, there’s a significant difference in perception between the phrases “the two men were yelling obscenities at each other” and “the two men were yelling instructions at each other regarding how to best lift the refrigerator, using foul language.” While one scenario may suggest a simple disagreement, the other might involve a complaint about the language used by two individuals working together.

Email communication can be one of the least secure methods for transmitting data. Furthermore, once sent over the internet, unauthorized individuals at various Internet service providers may potentially access the data. There’s also the risk that an email may be sent to an incorrect recipient if the sender’s email address is entered incorrectly. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that even a single erroneous letter or character in an email address could lead to transmission to the wrong party, especially since many email addresses can be quite similar yet belong to different individuals.

Emails can be printed and inadvertently left in insecure areas within offices. Similarly, written reports or reports transmitted through other means can pose a similar concern if they are left on desks or other areas where people might come across them or intentionally view them out of curiosity.

Reports that are sent using inappropriate methods or handled carelessly at any stage could result in a breach of confidentiality. It’s essential to exercise the utmost care to prevent this from occurring.

Taking Statements

Statements differ from reports in that a statement serves as a means to record one person’s viewpoint or even their opinion regarding a factual matter at hand. Statements play a significant role in report work. Given their nature, it’s crucial to gather multiple statements so that professionals can compare them. They may either dismiss a statement as extremely biased, inaccurate, or corroborate it with other statements.

Statements provided by witnesses, victims, suspects, or accused individuals must be documented verbatim, using the exact words spoken by the person giving the statement. An effective method for obtaining a statement is to employ open-ended questions like “please describe what happened?” This should be followed by questions aimed at seeking additional information or clarifying details.

A type of question to avoid is a closed-ended question, such as “Did you see the truck collide with the car?” Closed-ended questions typically yield responses of “yes” or “no” and can introduce bias into a statement by influencing the course of questions and answers.

It’s advisable to start by introducing yourself to the individual providing the statement, explaining the purpose of seeking information, and requesting their cooperation. Once the interviewee begins speaking, seek their permission to take notes and begin documenting their words in your memo book.

In certain situations, you may ask the person to write out their statement on separate lined paper or in your memo book if it’s appropriate. Although you cannot compel a private individual to do so, it’s generally best to request their signature on the statement.

However, there are specific rules to follow when interacting with individuals accused of a crime, which are outlined by law. This may involve reading the person their rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and/or issuing a caution before seeking information. In such circumstances, it’s advisable to read the individual their rights and caution them. However, it’s not recommended to interrogate them or request a statement, as interviews and statements are typically collected by the police in these situations. More details on this topic will be covered in the Legal Authorities section of this program.

When documenting statements from complainants, witnesses, victims, or individuals providing statements, write them in the first person and in the present tense, conveying the perspective of the statement giver.

Methods of submitting reports

Security reports are inherently confidential, especially when dealing with sensitive information. As mentioned in the previous sections on reports, various methods exist for submitting them. Urgent matters often require verbal reports, which can be delivered in person or via telephone to the client contact, dispatch center, or security company management.

Security Guards, who may maintain constant communication with a Dispatch Center or site-specific control room, also utilize two-way radios for reporting. Written reports can be hand-delivered, sent through postal services, faxed, or, in some cases, emailed as attachments or typed within the body of an email message. Modern reporting systems may feature electronic reporting, capable of transmitting in real-time over a local area computer network on a site or even across a wide area network on the internet.

Regardless of the method of distribution, it is crucial to send reports only to authorized individuals on a “need-to-know” basis to ensure compliance with confidentiality requirements.

An additional concern pertains to the security of radio communications. This is especially relevant when multiple contracted services, such as maintenance or cleaning staff, and security personnel at a site share the same radio network and channels. Moreover, radio communications can potentially be overheard by the general public in the vicinity if an earpiece is not used or caution is not exercised, making it an unsuitable method for transmitting confidential reports.

While a telephone line may appear secure, in the modern era of trunked phone lines, a business may have a common phone number trunked to several extensions. When the business’s main phone line is called and the call is transferred, there’s a possibility that an unauthorized individual may remain connected during the transfer. Furthermore, considering that phones often feature two-way speaker capability, this mode may also be overheard if the person receiving the call does not pick up the handset.

Let’s Summarize

Security reports are factual documents that serve as both documentary evidence and official records concerning conditions, events, occurrences, and circumstances related to a client’s property.

Source notes maintained by a Security Guard function as a valuable resource for completing the final report and refreshing the Guard’s memory when providing testimony.

It’s imperative that both notes and reports adhere to the rules of grammar, spelling, and the principles of evidence, following the best practices associated with official records.

Security Professionals must be well-versed in various types of reports to make informed decisions about the appropriate report type and delivery method.

Statements, on the other hand, differ from reports in that they present an individual’s perspective and may carry subjectivity or bias. Statements can be part of a report, and it’s crucial to follow the rules for taking statements to avoid contaminating evidence or rendering important information invalid due to non-compliance with evidence and legal regulations. Obtaining statements from multiple sources, where possible, is advisable to corroborate evidence and weed out biased or inaccurate statements.

Given below is a list of the most important and major points of Report Writing. These points are to be followed while writing any report. If these points are used and followed, you will be able to write a well written report as security guards should. Remember, memo books are legal documents and can be used in court. All reports can be used in court for evidence and can be necessary for audits.

Read the following very carefully as these are the basics of Report Writing.

Always use twenty-four-hour clock when reporting the time (ex: 11:00pm = 2300 hrs)
Always write the Time and Date on the report
Always use CAPITAL letters while writing any report
Always write in third person (ex: Correct way: “THE WRITER CONDUCTED A PATROL.” Incorrect way: “I CONDUCTED A PATROL.”) Never write a report using the first-person format by writing “I” or “Me” instead use the third person format by writing “THE WRITER” which indicates You, because You are the writer of this report
Never leave spaces between lines. You should always continue to write your report in the next line without skipping it
Never leave spaces between sentences.
Never leave a blank space anywhere on the report. If there is a blank space, cover it by drawing a line across it. (ex: “2300: THE WRITED CONDUCTED A PATROL.——————————————————-)
If an error is made, do not use white-out or scratch the mistake. Draw a line through the error and initial at the end of the sentence
Use a BLACK Pen
Write about Who, What, Where, When, Why and How to cover all the information required
Be as accurate as possible when writing Times and Description
Never use abbreviations. Always write the entire phrase
Use FACTS ONLY. Never write opinions

Basic Elements of Reports

Date
Time
Location
Weather
Actions/behaviour
Description of people
Observations
911 time of arrival and departure
Time of completion

Forms of Reports

Memo-book reports
Daily reports
Special occurrence reports

What’s the Purpose of Memo-Book Reports?

Memo books are the property of the Security Company you work for. A Security Company requires every security guard to have a memo-book and write daily reports in their memo-book. The Security Company requires that every security guards memo-book be a complete and accurate record of the actions and observations of a guard while on duty

Memo-book reports is an official legal document and your memo book reports can be used in the court of law. Your notes will be looked at as a major component of what was done during your shifts. Your memo book notes can be used to refresh your recollection of an event.

Since the memo-book is not your property and is considered a legal document, it is important that you do not tear or rip any page and that you do not doodle or draw on any page.

10 Points to Remember

Pages are numbered. Don’t leave blank pages or remove any pages
Fill every line on every page
All entries in black pen
Update your memo-book every hour or as events occur
Entries must be speciﬁc and not vague or general
Memo-books contain conﬁdential information
Witness statements must be signed, dated and timed. Print the witness name at the beginning
Notes must be neat and legible. Only approved short forms are accepted
Only ofﬁcial entries are allowed. No shopping list
If you lose or misplace your memo-book, report it immediately