Security perceptions survey
A survey instrument for measuring how staff themselves perceive security where they work. It answers a question that incident data cannot, and the answer is frequently uncomfortable.
Download the survey paper (PDF, English)What the survey measures
Incident records show what has already happened and been reported. They say nothing about the exposure that staff believe they carry, the confidence they have in the arrangements around them, or the gap between the official assessment and the experience of the people working under it. The survey is designed to measure that gap.
It covers four areas:
- Perceived exposure. How much risk staff believe their own work carries, and whether they think it has changed.
- Confidence in arrangements. Whether staff believe the security plan, the equipment, the training and the evacuation arrangements would work if they were needed.
- Willingness to raise concerns. Whether a member of staff would report a concern about their own safety, and what they expect to happen if they did.
- Experience of difference. Whether the respondent believes their own profile changes their exposure, which connects directly to the research on diverse profiles.
Design choices that determine whether the results are usable
- Anonymity that is real. If the questionnaire can be traced to a respondent, the answers will describe the official position. In small teams this requires the survey to be run across several offices or administered externally.
- Comparability. The same questions, in the same order, across locations and over time, so that a change means something.
- Questions about behaviour, not only opinion. Whether the respondent has actually declined a journey, reported an incident or raised a concern is more informative than whether they think they would.
- A stated use. Respondents are told before they answer what will be done with the results and who will see them. A survey whose results go nowhere makes the next one worthless.
- A response rate that is reported. A survey answered by a third of staff, without that being stated, will be read as representing all of them.
Reading the results
Three patterns recur and each carries a different implication.
High confidence, low incident reporting. The most likely explanation is that incidents are not being reported, not that none occur. The survey's own willingness-to-report questions usually confirm it.
Low confidence in a system that audits well. The arrangements exist and the people expected to use them do not believe they work. This is usually a training or a trust problem rather than an equipment one, and it will not show up in an audit.
A consistent difference between groups of staff. Where national staff, or women, or younger staff, or a particular office report systematically higher exposure or lower confidence, the survey has found something the risk assessment missed. The appropriate response is to change the assessment and not to explain the difference away.
Limitations
The survey measures perception, and perception is not the same as risk. Staff in a well-managed programme may feel less safe than staff in a badly managed one, because the first has trained them to recognise hazards and the second has not. The survey is therefore a source of questions rather than a measurement of safety, and it is used alongside incident data and assessment rather than instead of them.
Related
Practical guidance and research on the security of humanitarian staff, for the organisations that send them.