The DAR (Daily Activity Report) is an essential report in a variety of industries including security, law enforcement, hospitality, and more.
What is a Daily Activity Report?
A DAR is an accounting of activities and events occurring throughout the day. Each employee records his or her start and end shift times, along with daily activities.
Although the daily activity report also records incidents that occur each day, it is not the same as an incident report. The DAR records the fact that a particular event or incident occurred, while an incident report goes into greater detail. The officer, hospitality employee, or field employee typically submits a separate incident report, along with their daily activity report.
Employees use the same professional writing skills and expertise when writing their daily activity report as they do when writing every other report.
Why is a DAR Important?
It is a crucial report for a variety of industries. It serves as an organized and accurate document based on best writing practices. Tim Pakes describes fundamental components of writing an effective report, noting that information in key reports potentially serves as key evidence.
The daily activity report helps protects you and the company from needless disputes. Courts sometimes rely heavily on information in the report.
3 Ways to Take Your Report to the Next Level
Chief of Police Bill Harvey stresses the importance of paying attention to details. Avoid writing mundane, poor quality reports and take your DAR to the next level with these three ways:
Reduce Risk
Writing an outstanding daily activity report and perfecting the report before submitting it helps avoid inaccuracies and protects you from liability. You never know ahead of time when your daily activity report potentially becomes a part of a legal or liability claim.
Perfect your report by writing about every activity, no matter how minor it seems to you. The value of your report likely goes a long way in the case & It also may prevent future incidents from occurring.
Show Value
Show value when writing your daily activity report, taking care to accurately represent your time on the site. The customer or client does not always witness the work that contract security officers or other professionals perform.
When you write a complete and accurate report, begin and end every daily activity report with an accurate accounting of your daily arrival and departure times. Explain your time-on-site, including accurate reporting of any incidents that occur during your shift.
Use easy-to-understand terms, rather than law enforcement, security or hospitality industry terms. Using lingo potentially confuses managers, and customers, and serves no value.
Your clients will see the value in your DARs as they can potentially serve to eliminate other incidents from happening with the help of your detailed & accurate reports.
This daily activity report example does not show value:
I arrived for my shift. I checked the inside of the building and parking lot every hour, and nothing happened. I went home when my shift ended.
This daily activity report example shows your value:
At 0900, I arrived for my shift, checked in with the company manager. I asked if there were any current issues, the manager thanked me for checking in at the start of my shift.
At 0915, I checked the perimeter of the outside of the building, including the parking lot, and valuable company assets stored outside. I checked the entire inside premises, including office areas, hallways, restrooms, and storage areas. I then returned to the security area and monitored the premises remotely.
Show Continued Support
Find and solve problems before they become issues, starting with thorough rounds and accurate daily activity reports. Lt. Fran Hart reveals several ways to improve your reports.
Implement an incident reporting software to help keep accurate, timely & professional reports. The software helps with preventative measures that otherwise would possibly lead to challenges in a legal case or leaves you open for liability if important aspects of the DAR are not complete.
Taking Your Daily Activity Report to the Next Level
Learn how to write more efficient, accurate reports, and how to take your daily activity report to the next level with the Presynct_OnDemand software. Get started today with our basic plan.