A security guard at a Poplar Avenue office building in East Memphis told me last week that he’d been screamed at three times before lunch. Not over trespassing. Not over a break-in. Over a forehead thermometer.
The Shelby County Health Department’s mask mandate, combined with individual business policies requiring temperature checks at the door, has turned thousands of Memphis security guards into frontline health screeners. They’re pointing infrared thermometers at foreheads, counting heads for capacity limits, and telling grown adults to put on a mask or leave. Six months ago, none of this was in their job description.
That shift is creating real problems for the security companies employing these guards, the businesses contracting them, and the guards themselves.
The Job Changed Overnight
When COVID-19 shut Memphis down in March, most security contracts froze or shrank. Retail closed. Offices emptied. Event venues went dark. Then the reopening started, and with it came a set of requirements that nobody in the private security industry had planned for.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s phased reopening guidelines and the Shelby County Health Department’s directives put specific obligations on businesses: screen employees for symptoms, enforce capacity limits, require masks in certain settings. Somebody had to stand at the door and actually do it.
That somebody, at most commercial properties in Memphis, turned out to be the security guard.
“We got calls from clients we hadn’t heard from in weeks asking for guards who could do temperature checks,” said one operations manager at a Memphis-area security firm who asked not to be named. “They wanted it yesterday. No training plan, no written protocols. Just get a body at the door with a thermometer.”
The major national firms adapted quickly, at least on paper. Allied Universal rolled out what they called “Total Protection” services with health screening add-ons. Securitas offered COVID-specific guard packages. Phelps Security, a well-known regional name, adjusted its contracts for the new reality.
Smaller firms scrambled to keep up. Shield of Steel, the veteran-owned company based at 2682 Lamar Ave, started building customized COVID screening protocols for its clients. Their advantage was flexibility. A property manager on Summer Avenue who needed guards checking temperatures at two entrances starting Monday morning could get that done without fighting through a national company’s bureaucracy. The tradeoff: Shield of Steel and firms like them may not stock the thermal imaging cameras and automated screening kiosks that Allied Universal or Securitas can deploy from regional warehouses. (For those interested, Shield of Steel can be reached at (202) 222-2225 or shieldofsteel.com.)
Training Gaps Are Real
The core issue that nobody wants to talk about openly: security guards are not health workers. They’re licensed by the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance under the Private Protective Services Act. Their training covers access control, report writing, emergency response, legal authority, and use of force. Nowhere in the TDCI curriculum is there a module on infectious disease screening.
OSHA’s guidance for workplaces conducting temperature checks says employers should use contactless infrared thermometers, maintain at least six feet of distance when possible, and provide guards with appropriate PPE including N95 masks, face shields, and gloves. That’s the federal recommendation. The reality on the ground in Memphis looks different.
I visited four commercial properties in Midtown and Downtown last week. At two of them, guards were using consumer-grade forehead thermometers purchased from Walgreens. At one, the guard wore a cloth mask and no gloves. At the fourth, a more professional setup with a wall-mounted thermal scanner, the guard told me the device had given readings between 94 and 101 degrees for the same person within a five-minute span.
Temperature screening sounds simple. It is not. Environmental conditions affect readings. A person walking in from a Memphis parking lot in August heat will scan differently than someone who just got out of an air-conditioned car. Medications can suppress fevers. Asymptomatic carriers won’t register at all. The CDC has acknowledged that temperature screening alone catches only a fraction of COVID-positive individuals.
So what happens when a guard waves through someone running a 99.8 who later tests positive and infects half an office? That’s the liability question keeping security company lawyers busy this fall.
The Confrontation Problem
Mask enforcement has created a different kind of danger for guards. The Shelby County mask mandate applies to indoor public spaces, and businesses that fail to comply can face consequences. That puts guards in the position of enforcing a public health order that a sizable chunk of the population actively resists.
A guard working the entrance at a Germantown retail location described the typical encounter: someone walks in without a mask, the guard asks them to put one on or hands them a disposable one, and about one in ten people escalates. Yelling. Profanity. Threats to call corporate. Occasional physical intimidation.
“I signed up to protect property,” the guard said. “I didn’t sign up to be the mask police.”
Nationally, confrontations over mask enforcement have turned violent. A Family Dollar security guard in Flint, Michigan was shot and killed in May after telling a customer to wear a mask. That incident sent a chill through the entire industry. Memphis hasn’t seen anything that extreme, and nobody wants to be the city where it happens next.
The legal authority question makes this worse. Security guards in Tennessee have limited authority. They can deny entry to private property. They can ask someone to leave. They cannot physically detain someone for refusing to wear a mask. If a confrontation escalates, the guard is supposed to call MPD. With the Memphis Police Department already stretched thin, response times for a “customer refusing to wear a mask” call are not fast.
What Companies Should Be Doing
Security providers and their clients need to be addressing this head-on, not pretending the problem will resolve itself when COVID ends. Because nobody knows when that will be.
First, written protocols. Every security contract that includes health screening duties needs a written protocol specifying exactly what the guard does when someone registers a temperature above 100.4 (the CDC’s threshold), when someone refuses a mask, and when a situation escalates. The guard should not be making judgment calls about medical fitness.
Second, proper equipment. Consumer thermometers from the drugstore are not built for high-volume screening. If a business is serious about temperature checks, it needs commercial-grade infrared scanners and enough PPE for guards to stay protected through a full shift. That means N95 masks, face shields, and disposable gloves that get changed regularly.
Third, training. Even a four-hour supplemental training session covering de-escalation techniques specific to health screening, proper use of thermometers, documentation requirements, and legal boundaries would put guards in a dramatically better position than they’re in now. Some companies are doing this. Many are not.
Fourth, liability coverage. Security companies should be reviewing their insurance policies with a fine-tooth comb. General liability policies written in 2019 probably did not contemplate a scenario where a security guard’s missed temperature reading leads to a COVID outbreak. If there’s a gap, it needs to be closed before a claim hits.
The Bigger Question
Six months into the pandemic, the private security industry in Memphis is doing work it was never designed to do. Guards are functioning as public health gatekeepers with minimal training, inconsistent equipment, and unclear legal backing.
The Shelby County Health Department issues the mandates. Businesses are expected to comply. And the guard standing at the door with a thermometer and a box of disposable masks absorbs all the friction.
Some firms will handle this well. They’ll invest in training, buy the right equipment, and write clear protocols. Others will keep sending undertrained guards to the door with a $30 thermometer and hope nothing goes wrong.
The companies and property managers reading this should be asking one question of their security providers right now: show me your COVID screening protocol in writing. If the answer is a blank stare, it might be time to make a call to someone who has one.