Much of a Door Supervisor's role is quite straightforward - in the first instance it is about ensuring that venue policy and the law on admissions are upheld. This entails turning away people who fail to meet dress requirements or the venue's minimum age. For those customers who meet requirements for entry, the door supervisor should greet them politely on their arrival and wish them a good evening on their departure. They also need to see that fire safety requirements, such as maximum occupancy and emergency exits, are stuck to.

As not all troublemakers are immediately apparent prior to entry, a door supervisor must also see to it that should trouble flare up inside the venue, the person or persons responsible are identified and dealt with in the correct manner using only reasonable force, and that any incidents that take place are documented as soon as they are satisfactorily dealt with. Company drugs policy and the standard drinking up period are also within the Door Supervisor's remit, and they must ensure that at the end of the evening all customers leave the premises in an orderly fashion, checking the toilets afterwards to ensure that no-one has been left behind.

The Door Supervisor's role, in short, is to see that order is maintained on the premises on which they work, and the relevant SIA qualifications are designed to see to it that any candidate for the role of Door Supervisor is fully conversant with the way in which this role is upheld. To this end, the course for an SIA-accredited Door Supervisor deals with a range of subjects that enable the individual seeking accreditation to perform the role to its optimum level. This range of subjects is more extensive than one may assume when they first think about the job of Door Supervision.

The course extends to thirty classroom hours and two hours of exams.
The 30 hours of classroom work are split into two halves of fourteen hours, the first half being entitled "Role and Responsibilities of Door Supervisors in the Security Industry Environment". This half covers all the hypothetical considerations of someone wishing to work as a Door Supervisor. Beginning with an introduction to their chosen role, and to the leisure and security industries in which they will make their living, this section of the course also entails ten further modules, all of which combine to give a full understanding of the legal requirements, responsibilities and entitlements of a Door Supervisor. These are as follows

IPPS Door Supervisor Training Course

Standards of Behaviour - a grounding in the reasons why standards are necessary and important, and an understanding of what the SIA requires in this regard;

Civil and Criminal Law - an understanding of these subjects, the definition of reasonable or necessary force, types of assault and other criminal offences a Door Supervisor may face, and the options for action resulting from these;

Searching - an overview of the reasons and methods for searching people and property, conditions for entry, the definition of an offensive weapon, the hazards of carrying out a search and the procedures when an item is found

Arrest - defining why and how an arrest may be made, the limitations on a Door Supervisor's powers in this regard and what should result from an arrest

Drugs Awareness - identifying drug misuse, recognising symptoms of drug abuse, listing illegal drugs and signs of drug-dealing, and procedures for dealing with contravention of drugs policy

Recording Incidents and Crime Scene Protection - why and how an incident should be recorded, different kinds of evidence and how to preserve evidence

Licensing Law - knowledge of the law relating to refusing entry and ejection, police powers, the different types of licence and the law as it relates to young people, drunkenness, prostitution and unlawful gaming

Equal Opportunities - awareness of the issues surrounding equality, prejudice and stereotyping, and Acts preventing this

Health and Safety - awareness of legislation in this area, duty of care, responsibilities of the employer and employee, hazard identification and prevention of injury or contamination

Emergency Procedures - how to define an emergency, basic fire safety, bomb threats and first aid

The second part of the course deals with communication skills and conflict management - although this is often seen as the true job of the Door Supervisor, this part of the course deals with extraordinary situations which tend not to occur on a regular basis in well-guarded premises. These entail violent and aggressive behaviour and the consequences arising from these.