17 replies to this topic

[Skye]

Clause 7.1.3 of the BRC Global Standard for Food Safety (Issue 6) states that training records should include the date and duration of training, which I understand for certified training such as Level 2 Food Hygiene, etc. However, at a recent BRC audit I was told by the auditor that my training records should include the duration of training for any training, instruction or information given to employees. I record the issuing of information, work instructions, etc. but not how long it has taken to relay this information to employees. I would be interested in other members views on this, as I am about to draw up training records for another company who are working towards BRC certification.

[Madam A. D-tor]

Yes.

training records need to include duration.
There is a huge difference between a refresher training of 4 hours and one of 20 minutes.

[Zeeshan]

Clause 7.1.3 of the BRC Global Standard for Food Safety (Issue 6) states that training records should include the date and duration of training, which I understand for certified training such as Level 2 Food Hygiene, etc. However, at a recent BRC audit I was told by the auditor that my training records should include the duration of training for any training, instruction or information given to employees. I record the issuing of information, work instructions, etc. but not how long it has taken to relay this information to employees. I would be interested in other members views on this, as I am about to draw up training records for another company who are working towards BRC certification.

By your statement, whether right or wrong, I understood that you are treating informal awareness activities, information sharing activities and activity of handing over documents to employees as all training activities. IMO it is a wrong perception. If these activities would be treated as training activities than no body could truly record the duration of such activities. AFAIK all standards use the term TRAINING for a group of activities which are formally planned and conducted and of recordable duration.

Regards:
M.Zeeshan Zaki.

Edited by Zeeshan, 14 January 2012 - 08:43 AM.

[mind over matter]

Clause 7.1.3 of the BRC Global Standard for Food Safety (Issue 6) states that training records should include the date and duration of training, which I understand for certified training such as Level 2 Food Hygiene, etc. However, at a recent BRC audit I was told by the auditor that my training records should include the duration of training for any training, instruction or information given to employees. I record the issuing of information, work instructions, etc. but not how long it has taken to relay this information to employees. I would be interested in other members views on this, as I am about to draw up training records for another company who are working towards BRC certification.

I'm not familiar about BRC but ISO 22000 requires that competence requirements be defined, and that training and other actions be taken to ensure competence. It doesn't say anything about training, and therefore, training duration on ISO 22000.

[Simon]

If you carry out training it is always useful include the duration on the record - it makes the record more complete.

Regards,
Simon

[mind over matter]

If you carry out training it is always useful include the duration on the record - it makes the record more complete.

Regards,
Simon

Yes - Perhaps "duration" demonstrates provision of resource.

[George @ Safefood 360°]

I think you can accept that the recording of training duration is a requirements of the BRC standard.

It is good practice to define training program in advance including title, learning outcomes, content and the duration of the training etc.

The recording of training duration was also raised by an auditor during a recent BRC audit in which I was involved. It appears that auditors have been given a specific instruction to check this requirement.
George.

[GMO]

Clause 7.1.3 of the BRC Global Standard for Food Safety (Issue 6) states that training records should include the date and duration of training, which I understand for certified training such as Level 2 Food Hygiene, etc. However, at a recent BRC audit I was told by the auditor that my training records should include the duration of training for any training, instruction or information given to employees. I record the issuing of information, work instructions, etc. but not how long it has taken to relay this information to employees. I would be interested in other members views on this, as I am about to draw up training records for another company who are working towards BRC certification.

Yes and this isn't a change from issue 5 either. As others have indicated, it's so the auditor can have an indication on the depth of the training; although a training session of 2 hours won't tell them whether it was effective, if you'd trained HACCP in 10 minutes they might suspect that would indicate it was ineffective.

[trubertq]

[The answer is yes.... I was told about it during pre- audit and we had it in place for audit and it was checked... even for refresher training on SOPs etc... better to have a record of all that stuff.

[Skye]

Thanks, that's given me an idea. I am going to record each procedure/activity as a component of a training session and then I will be able to record the total duration on the training records.

I think you can accept that the recording of training duration is a requirements of the BRC standard.

It is good practice to define training program in advance including title, learning outcomes, content and the duration of the training etc.

The recording of training duration was also raised by an auditor during a recent BRC audit in which I was involved. It appears that auditors have been given a specific instruction to check this requirement.
George.

[mind over matter]

I think you can accept that the recording of training duration is a requirements of the BRC standard.

It is good practice to define training program in advance including title, learning outcomes, content and the duration of the training etc.

The recording of training duration was also raised by an auditor during a recent BRC audit in which I was involved. It appears that auditors have been given a specific instruction to check this requirement.
George.

Again, I'm not a user of BRC but I am interested to see what the standard exactly says about training and duration. I would appreciate someone who could post the requirement here. I feel that a lot of what you are describing is above and beyond the requirements of the standard. That isn't necessarily bad, if it works for you. But I wish to know the minimum requirement because under ISO 22000, you need to show competence. The fact that someone undergone a number and long duration of trainings does not automatically indicated competence. However, acceptable work performance would. In many cases incumbent employees are deemed competent based on acceptable performance history.So, I wish to know if the "training duration" is the method of determining competence prescribed by BRC

Edited by mind over matter, 20 January 2012 - 06:47 AM.

[GMO]

Records of all training shall be available. This shall include as a minimum:
 name of trainee and confirmation of attendance
 date and duration of training
 title or course contents as appropriate
 training provider.
Where training is undertaken by agencies on behalf of the company records of the training shall be available

There are other sections of the section referring to competency. I would argue that both training and compitency are needed. If you rely solely on compitence, you then cannot be 100% sure that they are doing everything to one method. If you rely solely on training, you then cannot be sure of competence. It's a valid point but no, we aren't going above what the standard asks for and I believe this requirement was also in issue 5.

[mind over matter]

Records of all training shall be available. This shall include as a minimum:
 name of trainee and confirmation of attendance
 date and duration of training
 title or course contents as appropriate
 training provider.
Where training is undertaken by agencies on behalf of the company records of the training shall be available

There are other sections of the section referring to competency. I would argue that both training and compitency are needed. If you rely solely on compitence, you then cannot be 100% sure that they are doing everything to one method. If you rely solely on training, you then cannot be sure of competence. It's a valid point but no, we aren't going above what the standard asks for and I believe this requirement was also in issue 5.

Thanks for posting the specific requirement. The reasons why I requested to post the specific requirement of BRC, 1) I haven't seen the BRC standard yet . 2) I noticed some of the posts that I have read here, including posts from other threads, posters have used examples of how he/she would do things in a way that sounds like they are requirements. Perhaps because of the words "must," "need," "have," etc. We all have a tendency to do that sometimes, but if you are going to answer as many questions as you have been, it might be time to step back and really look at the wording. We don't ever want to mislead a person who is new to BRC, HACCP, ISO 22000 implementation. The quality and food safety field is coming out of a dark period when too many personal opinions were accepted as fact and misinterpretations of the standard abounded. So, I just hope that posters take a little extra time making sure that his/her facts are in line and he/she hasn't stated opinions as facts for the benefit of non-expert like me.

As for the training, it is just one of the steps it takes for a person to become competent. Under ISO 22000, training is not the goal, competency is. Training doesn't necessarily impart competency. It should provide the necessary information to be used in achieving competency, but it doesn't always work out that way. Once training has been done, it's like corrective action...you need to follow up and determine whether the training was effective or not. For every training course, you need to determine in advance what the training is supposed to accomplish, and the nature of the objective evidence that will be sought in verifying that the objectives of the training have been achieved. But per your post I realized that under BRC training is required.

Edited by mind over matter, 20 January 2012 - 03:49 PM.

[ScottN_AMQA]

You can create an outline of each area of training that you do, list the key points of the training, the average duration and titles of any materials you use.
Also list the person or department that normaly performs the training with names of those individuals. Keep a register for the employes to sign and date with the training topic they attended, keep it all organized and it is ready for any audit or regulator when needed.

[jorgeoaleman]

To comply with this is it necessary to document time training started and time training ended or would having an average duration of said training suffice?

[DocGra]

Hello

My First Post ...


Tend to agree with all the above ... we record training time amongst the records to indicate depth of training.

We use our SOPs to define what is trained and as competence tests. So we log the time spent training to be able to perform an SOP unassisted and then use the SOP as the stanard against which we test competence - the operator must be able to reproduce / perform the SOP without assistance before training is signed off.

Some folks need a couple of goes at some tasks and so log longer training time.

So training time is also an indicator of competence too - all else equal.

Hope this helps,

Kind regards,

Graham


ps I like what I see here ... lots of useful things from folks happy to share ... nice one chaps!

[ajrfrank]

Records of all training shall be available. This shall include as a minimum:
 name of trainee and confirmation of attendance
 date and duration of training
 title or course contents as appropriate
 training provider.
Where training is undertaken by agencies on behalf of the company records of the training shall be available

By " training provider" it can be an internal provider right? such a trained internal auditor o haccp team leader. Not all the training should be given by an external agency right?

[George @ Safefood 360°]

By " training provider" it can be an internal provider right? such a trained internal auditor o haccp team leader. Not all the training should be given by an external agency right?

Yes. Trainers can be both internal and external as long as they are competent as a trainer in the specific objectives of the training program and ideally in proper and effective training techniques