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In this series of blog posts, we are exploring the subject matter from the webinar "The Four Cs to Get Your Operations Leaders Excited About Training" with Bob Rysavy, HR Training Manager at Hearthside Food Solutions, and Kristin Kastrup, Senior Consultant, Training and Human Resource Optimization. Read Part 1 and Part 2.

Intertek Alchemy released a new report analyzing the results from the 6^th annual Global Food Safety Training Survey. Why is this big news? The survey contains valuable data on food safety training programs and identifies areas for improvement in food safety training — insight that can help all companies improve their own training programs.

Many manufacturing and food processing facilities are housed in buildings constructed before the acceleration of technology; many were designed before the idea of WiFi even existed. As a result, many companies in this industry have some design challenges to deal with daily that may impact productivity and training. Challenges like low visibility on the production floor or lack of convenient training space can make training space feel like an afterthought.

It can be challenging to get your operations leaders to commit to staying on track with an ongoing training course. In this part of our conversation, Kastrup and Rysavy expanded upon the second “C” of the four core elements — commitment — and shared the best approach for dividing up responsibilities and ownership in a healthy training process:

Operations leaders are constantly juggling a demanding number of production goals, from reaching daily quotas to maximizing the utilization of equipment. With all of their critical responsibilities, it’s easy to see how staying on track with an ongoing training plan can fall by the wayside!

Many benefits of eLearning aren’t entirely new. But the inherent challenges of a manufacturing facility and workforce have made widespread eLearning programs harder to implement than in an office setting. But times are changing. Even in WiFi-scarce facilities, eLearning is being used more frequently, and mobile capabilities are being embraced where they were once impractical.

So how does eLearning specifically benefit frontline workers in manufacturing? Let’s take a look:

Industry-wide traceability remains a priority for the produce industry — and for good reason.

Are you a manufacturing company? If so, the likelihood that you are using a training platform designed for the average, college-educated office worker is pretty high. Almost every employee training program is built using the same techniques, methods, and philosophies of training developed for a corporate, sit-down-at-your-desk-and-work-on-your-computer type environment.

But for workers on the production floor, this is not only impractical, but dangerous. Those suit-and-tie DVDs (and even VHS tapes!) don’t resonate with production team members.

How can you tell if your employees are learning what they need to do their jobs correctly? Do they know how to successfully execute specific tasks required for their job? Are they demonstrating safe behaviors and following standard operating procedures? Do they “get it”?

Recently, our new hire onboarding program was restructured to help improve retention while keeping employees safe, productive and engaged. Then COVID-19 happened, and we had to adjust again. And continue adjusting — it is an ongoing process.

In May 2016, the FDA finalized Mitigation Strategies to Protect Food Against Intentional Adulteration. The Intentional Adulteration Rule, or IA Rule, establishes new requirements focused on significantly minimizing acts of intentional adulteration intended to cause wide scale public health harm. Implementation of the IA Rule helps lower the overall risk of intentional adulteration and prevent those acts that may cause wide scale public health harm.

Nobody likes an awkward conversation. Nobody really wants to tell a friend, colleague, or direct report that they are causing other people discomfort, especially when it’s related to personal hygiene. But we’ve all been in the company of someone with foul breath or an unpleasant body odor.

Why is having or establishing a strong health and safety program of such crucial importance? Well, put simply: human consequences!

Knowing how to successfully onboard a new frontline worker can mean the difference between employees staying with you for the long run versus having a high turnover rate. In fact, Glassdoor reveals that companies that have efficient, robust onboarding processes tend to improve their retention rate by more than 80%. As an added bonus, employee productivity is about 70% higher at manufacturers with an effective onboarding process.

After our last blog post on this topic, we saw an uptick in COVID-19 related questions, understandably. Today I will be addressing one of the more common ones: whether illnesses caused by the virus are recordable or reportable. I’ve included a link below to the latest enforcement guidance memo from OSHA which describes what we need to do to determine work-relatedness.

I will also discuss additional aspects of your safety programs that you might want to review in light of this current pandemic and future ones.  As you read, please keep in mind that the CDC has different COVID-19 reporting requirements for healthcare providers, so if you're in the healthcare industry, please review those.