Security and facility services in one contract: when it works

Surveillance or guarding of property and facilities is the first activity listed in Law 2518/1997 (art. 1 §1α), and any business providing it to third parties needs a special operating licence (art. 2 §1). The law requires security businesses:

• not to carry out art. 1 §1 activities without the required licence (art. 4 §1 ιε);
• not to employ staff without the required work licence (art. 4 §1 ιδ);
• to report monthly to the police the staff they will deploy, with work-licence number and post (art. 4 §1 ια).

The consequences do not stop at security companies. Art. 8 §1 punishes with imprisonment of up to three years and a pecuniary penalty “whoever” carries out these activities without a licence, whoever works as security staff in a security company without a work licence, and whoever hires security staff or assigns them such activities without the required work licence. On top of that, art. 9 §2 provides administrative fines and, for repeat breaches, suspension of the operating licence for a business that breaches its obligations.

If the facility company subcontracts the guarding, ask for the operating licence of the company that actually employs the guards, and their work-licence numbers. How to check is covered in the guide to checking a security company’s licence.

This is where bundles get muddled. A receptionist who welcomes visitors is providing a reception service. If she is asked to watch over the premises, do check rounds or decide who gets in for security reasons, the work moves towards guarding. Law 2518/1997 defines security staff by what they are assigned (art. 1 §2), and such staff must hold a work licence (art. 3 §1).

• Write each post’s duties separately: reception, cleaning, maintenance, guarding. Wherever there is surveillance or guarding, the post is covered by a licensed guard.
• The guard is visible: on duty, they carry a security-staff ID card and a badge marked “PRIVATE SECURITY” (art. 6 §1). Visitors and staff know who is who.
• Your own people are not exempt: if you assign one of your employees to guard your premises, arts 3, 4 §2, 5 and 6 apply to them too (art. 1 §3), including the category A work licence (art. 3 §2). The two models are compared in the guide to in-house security vs outsourcing.

A single contract has a real advantage: one coordinator for the whole building and one picture of what happens there. It also carries a risk: guarding becomes “one of the services” and nobody knows who is guarding, under which licence, or who checks them. To work, the contract must state for the guarding:

• Which business employs the guards, and its operating-licence number, which it must show on its documents (art. 4 §1α).
• Guarding posts and hours, separate from cleaning, reception or maintenance hours.
• Written post orders for each guarding post, as an annex.
• Replacement: how quickly an empty guarding post is covered.
• Reports and incidents: which guarding reports you receive and how quickly you hear about an incident.

These terms are set out in detail in the guide to security guard contract terms. They apply the same way whether guarding has its own contract or is a chapter of a larger one.

In bundled contracts the temptation is to fill the guard’s shift with “small jobs”: taking in parcels, keys for contractors, a quick clean-up, a breakdown. The test is simple: who is watching while the guard does this?

• Usually a fit: logging visitors at the entrance they already guard, handing keys in and out against a key log, reporting a fault spotted on patrol.
• Not a fit: tasks that keep them away from the post or the screens, manual work that needs both hands, escorting contractors to another floor with no one covering.
• Always written down: every extra task goes into the post orders, together with what the guard does if something happens while they are on it.

A security business must train its staff according to the duties assigned to them (art. 4 §1δ). If you add duties, ask for both the post orders and the training to be updated.

A good facility manager knows when the bins were emptied and when the filters were changed. It is not their job to check whether the guard reached every checkpoint on the night patrol. Ask for these in writing:

• Which supervisor from the security business checks the posts, and how often.
• A guarding report separate from the cleaning or maintenance report: patrols by checkpoint, shift report, incident log.
• One escalation line for security incidents that does not run through the cleaning supervisor.

OVIT provides this through the Guardly platform: patrols, incidents and reports in the same picture the operations team sees, and a real person answers at the operations desk.

In a bundle, guarding can “disappear” into a total price. That is why the rejection test is applied to the hours, not the total. Full-time work is 40 hours a week (Labour Code art. 189), so a 24/7 guarding post (168 hours) needs at least 4.2 full-time positions, before leave and replacements.

• Ask for guarding hours and posts separately from the other services.
• Ask the offer to show how those hours are lawfully covered, including nights, Sundays and public holidays.
• If it cannot show this, reject it: something essential is missing, usually from the guard themselves.

Among the offers that pass that test, you choose on legality, people, supervision and reporting — not on which comes out lower.