Structure

In the early days, there wasn't an official rank structure, more so just roles. They had officers who enforced order and client rules and regulations. Then some supervisors oversaw the operations of officers in a district, some larger districts had managers who would organize supervisors but did more of the office staff and were rarely ever in the field, unlike supervisors who were frequently in the field. Whoever was in charge of a district would report to headquarters, which in the early days was just a couple of people who did large-scale planning, and did payroll.

SecuraCorp has been in operation for more than 250 years by now and has expanded from the twenty-man operation they started with to now over a million employees. This sort of growth required many things, and a formal rank structure was inevitable and has gone through a large number of iterations but as it stands now, this is the rank structure across all divisions, with some exceptions to specific divisions.

Recruit

You've submitted your profile to SecuraCorp and a recruiter has decided to bring you on. Since SecuraCorp mostly promotes internally more than 98% of employees come in at this rank and from here are sent to some sort of training program. Upon completion of your training program, you'll be sent to your division as a technician 1.

Specialist

While specialist is the name of the rank, it isn't an employee's full title. For example, a recruiter's full title would be Recruiting Specialist. A cyber security professional would be a Cyber Security Specialist.

This rank has 5 tiers with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest. These tiers represent someone's skill in their profession, with Specialist 1 being someone who may still be learning the field's details and how things work, and not the learning environment. While there isn't a specific number of people allowed to be a tier 5, it isn't easy. Specialist 5's are people who have dedicated their lives to their craft and are beyond subject matter experts, but are pioneering the field, their skills are unmatched.

To progress to tiers 2 and 3 the process is fairly straightforward. You go online and take the test. However, you must spin a minimum amount of time in each tier to be eligible for promotion, this time limit is dependent on the field you're in, and this decision is made by a Specialist 5 in your field. Failing the test generates a cooldown before you're allowed to take the test again, how long is also up to a Specialist 5 in your field. Once you've passed the test the promotion is instant and automatic, which comes with a pay increase.

Supervisor

Once you make it to Specialist 3 you have the option to test for Supervisor 1, which takes you out of an operational role and into a role where you are placed in charge of a team of specialists and become responsible for their output and reporting metrics to managers. Supervisors are expected to do the work in their field since it remains in their title. An example would be a Recruiting Supervisor or Cyber Security Supervisor. However, in practice, most supervisors create busy work to avoid doing their regular job.

Much like Specialist, this rank goes from 1 - 5 but unlike Specialist to be promoted you have to meet several metrics; time in tier, passing the written test, passing a verbal test, completion of relevant training, and positive performance reviews.

This time when you promote tiers not only is it a pay increase but you are placed in charge of larger teams, or your current team is expanded depending on strategic needs. It's not uncommon to promote and stay in place if there is nowhere to send you, but staying with smaller teams will reflect poorly on your performance reviews for your new rank, so it's a career killer to stay in place.

Manager

Once you reach Supervisor 4 you can decide to pursue the Manager route for your career. This move officially takes you away from your initial specialization and now your job is to bring in reports from supervisors and manage your district from a large-scale perspective, something that most specialists will even think about. Due to this, a Specialist 4 or 5 is typically assigned to work directly with a manager, one of the few ways to get out of the field as a Specialist.

Managers once again have the 1 - 5 tier system, but since they no longer have the old titles they have new titles.

District managers, Tier 1, will work in a field small field office, or a local HQ depending on the scale of operation. Typically with 3 - 5 supervisors reporting to them and they report to tier 2s,

Regional Managers, Tier 2, depending on the type of environment they're deployed in may perform the services of a T1 Manager while also having District Managers reporting to them but it's more likely that they will be HQs in their largest district and have T1 Manager working in the same building.

Sector Managers, Tier 3, are essentially the same thing as T2 but stepped up a level and may be performing duties of a T2, but not a T1. They will also likely be in their largest district, meaning that one building may contain three tiers of managers and their staff.

Theatre Managers, Tier 4, is a copy and paste of the previous. They may occasionally have to travel to Company HQs but will spend most of their time in their assigned Theatre.

Divisional Manager, Tier 5, is the beginning of Corporate office jobs. This tier has meetings with executives daily.

The way these Manager tiers often work is the Executives say "We're doing this" and the T5 will interpret how they are going to do this and task their T4s with completing their mission. T4s then add their localized touch and pass it on and the same happens down to T1 Managers who are responsible for their supervisors and specialists completing the task.

This may seem like overkill for performing tasks, but not every division has every tier. This is a general guideline. There is no HR Division, it falls under "Business operations" and they may not have a theatre manager and or district manager and have districts report to regional managers who report to the divisional manager. They may make it easier to promote to Spec5 than Officers who have very few T5 Specs and who also have full command structures.

I imagine that in the HR side of things, Spec5 is easy to get, but Super5 is very difficult because they don't need many supervisors and there are only so many spots available, Officer Spec5 is nearly impossible but Super5 is fairly easy since so many people rotate in and out of these spots but then Man5 is once again near impossible because these are highly dedicated people who have made it to an office job.

Executive isn't a rank, because all of these positions are named, created, and destroyed at the will of the Board of Directors. You don't request to be promoted to these, you're requested to. You're now concerned with things like profitability, and strategic decision-making while trusting your managers for operations management.

Each division will have its executive who works with its divisional manager, and most will report directly to the CEO. Their title is usually something like "Director of Corporate Security" or "Director of Naval Operations"

Some clients, like Quantech, will have their division and their director. The Director of Quantech Operations may work with the previously named directors, but they have the budget that allows them to build their divisional navy and everything else.

Ingrahm had its division when it still existed, and now Royzon Compact does.

Overall the theory behind this structure is it clearly outlines the promotion path from Recruit to CEO, even if it does require a bit of luck and a lifetime of dedication. Some of the earlier versions focused only on the Officer specialization, creating a toxic culture within the Officer Corp because the ranks were seen as status symbols and not marks for competency while every other profession in the company was flat with just the title and no clear path on how to grow in the company. While there are issues with this system, it's been in place for 70 years is engrained in company culture, and is generally well accepted.

In the early days and into some of the more toxic versions of the rank structure each rank had its insignia that identified to everyone who saw them where they stood in the company. In the name of tradition, these still exist, but their nature has transformed, but this requires a brief explanation of uniforms.

Each division has its own rules for uniforms, the only company-wide policy is that each division must have a formal uniform with rules on showing company decorations and rank, since the company has annual formal dinners celebrating the founding of the company, while additional formal dinners are at division discretion.

The general rule of thumb for the company is if you're at the company HQ, you're in your formal uniform. The business operations division depends on location but most of them work from home, and those that don't have little rules on appropriate office attire.

Divisions that provide field services tend to have a couple of different uniforms, one for general policing, another for war operations, and one for formal.

Returning to displaying rank, the general rule of thumb is that if you're in your normal office space, you won't wear your rank since the people there should know you. An example of this would be a T4 Manager going to meet with their T5 Manager in the Corporate office. The T4 Manager will wear their rank while the T5 won't so that other T5s and executives know that they don't work here, which is a security measure and shows that they aren't new.

Another example of this would be that a pair of Officers patrolling their normal areas won't wear their rank. Their direct supervisor who is bringing a T4 manager to inspect the area won't wear their rank, but the visiting T4 will, unless the area is hostile and doing so would put a target on them.

A 3rd, and maybe obvious example, is if a Spec3 Officer is being awarded at the corporate HQ, they would wear their formal uniform with their rank, while the awarding manager or executive may or may not, depending on the amount of press present at the award ceremony. If it's a private matter, they won't wear rank, if there is a lot of media there they will.

The general guideline is, if you're going somewhere people don't know you, give them a bit of help by showing your rank since your rank quickly identifies what you do, and how good you are at it.

The insignia.

For all the tiered ranks they are rather simple. Each tier is one vertical bar, for each promotion the overall bars get smaller so that they can fit in the same 1x1 inch square which is the space for the insignia. T5 of each tier is replaced, it is not barred but instead the company's logo.

Each specialty has a different thing that is inside the bars, Officers have the traditional badge shape repeating inside the bars, and the HR department will have, frankly I can't think of anything cool for them to have. The background color is determined by which division you're a member of.

Once you are promoted to supervisor or manager you gain an outline on your insignia (not each bar) with Supervisors being blue (the color of blood) and managers being Maroon (my favorite color). Even as a manager, you retain your markings in your rank, to show your origins but they are now faded.

When you become an executive your insignia changes to the company logo, if they are internal promotions they will retain their faded marks but the background becomes stripped with black and whatever their division color is, and the whole insignia is outlined in gold.