The Adaptive Airport Employee - what happens when the rules don't cover the security situation!

By Prof. Aln (Avi) Kirschenbaum*

BEMOSA analysis of a field survey of European airports that entailed interviewing a broad range of airport employees has shown that some employees are more adaptive in dealing with unusual threatening situation than others. 

This is in sharp contrast to the security framework of rules and procedures that were developed to guide their actions during routine and threatening security situations. The fact that a large proportion of the total sample of respondents (75%) had never encountered a "real" security threat or believed that most threats were "false alarms" (65%) may have played a role in affecting such adaptive behaviors. Typical of responses were that such employees would bend the rules if the situation calls for it (35%), even act against orders (20%) or break protocol to get the job done (40%).

After a careful analysis of the responses it became apparent that three key features of employees' characteristics were significant in being able to adapt to "new" or "unusual" situations not covered by the numerous rules and protocols in place: these were related to a specific set of personal, organizational and social network traits. 

Of even more interest is that the proportion of adaptive employees significantly varied by airport suggesting that the organizational and/or cultural climate of each has an impact on its employee's ability to adapt to non-routine and unusual security threats. Further, given the ever changing threats and the "catching up" through reactive regulations, following "old" rules may not be the best strategy to make airport security more effective; making it imperative to enhance training so as to reward adaptive behaviors as a proactive means of dealing with the unexpected.

* The writer is the initiator and coordinator of BEMOSA.