How much employee refresher training did you carry out this year?

Talking specifically about food safety and quality how many days refresher training have your employees received this year.  Please vote and explain what the subjects were and how and why they were chosen, what type of training was it e.g. a formal course or short toolbox talk, was the training conducted in-house or via and external training provider and importantly did it work?

Regards,
Simon

Scored 5 days:

Quite hard to actually quantify 'days' as it varied amongst staff. All training is refreshed 3 years. CCP's every year. GMP training/assessments that I introduced as new items will probably end annually too...

I have also introduced some significant changes to a raft of process sheets and procedures. These were spread throughout the process(s) and involved most staff in one way or another, some staff may have had only 1 or 2 items for re-training some staff up to 8 !

We have an annual training half day for all full time and currently working casual employees.  It covers GMPs, allergens, HACCP, Food Defence and H&S in general and any specific recurring items or new/hot topics.  We use a combination of the Alchemy training platform and in house generated presentations.  I would rather train in small bites throughout the year but in order to ensure everyone gets the training we do it in half day sessions,  It is repeated 8-10 times to ensure everyone is done.

Scored 5 days:

Quite hard to actually quantify 'days' as it varied amongst staff. All training is refreshed 3 years. CCP's every year. GMP training/assessments that I introduced as new items will probably end annually too...I have also introduced some significant changes to a raft of process sheets and procedures. These were spread throughout the process(s) and involved most staff in one way or another, some staff may have had only 1 or 2 items for re-training some staff up to 8 !

Hi John, I know the poll is a little restrictive, but it does allow us to share our stories and see how other people do it.  On the face of it 5 day's is a lot (or is it?) and as you say you are going through a lot of change and newness...are the employees receptive to the training and do you see benefit?

We have an annual training half day for all full time and currently working casual employees.  It covers GMPs, allergens, HACCP, Food Defence and H&S in general and any specific recurring items or new/hot topics.  We use a combination of the Alchemy training platform and in house generated presentations.  I would rather train in small bites throughout the year but in order to ensure everyone gets the training we do it in half day sessions,  It is repeated 8-10 times to ensure everyone is done.

Hi Sandima, 1/2 a day is good and meets the requirements of refresher, to be fair it's probably the minimum you can get away with working under a GFSI standard.  Do you do other things like put information notices on notice boards or have short department meetings.  Sometimes this is a way to add in some food safety and quality topics that could be considered "refresher training".  I've only recently learned the value of toolbox talks (little and often), which to me is more effective way of keeping food safety in the forefront of minds.  I know the link is human safety, but it gives the idea of the system. :smile:  Maybe we haven't really adopted this yet in the food industry. :dunno:

Regards,

Simon

Hi,

I am a consultant and conduct training at a few organisations. The most common refresher training is Food Safety and HACCP - this is done on an annual basis.

A few other items that are routinely covered as a refresher annually are:

- Allergen management

- Documentation procedures

- Halal awareness

- Food Defence

The refresher training needs to be tailored to the audience. The majority of the training I conduct is for production staff and a large number of them have English as a second language so is very simple and has lots of "on-site" examples and reminding them of the "why"s for various procedures

For other staff who may be more experienced I try to throw in some facts and figures that they don't know (to keep them engaged so they don't just sleep for a couple of hours lol).

Training sessions are brief and if required extra sessions are held.  It is definitely better to have little and often!

_{hi there,}

_{I'm an iso 22000:2005 practitioner and a fstl as well, we do the training once a week for at least not more than 1 hr. per session. I don't like to make it long as the staff will somewhat feel bored. We're a multi national establishment so expect that some staff might not able to catch up. what we did, we assign somebody to translate it for them to be able to understand the topic.}

_{some of the topics:}

_prp's

_oprp's

_ccp's

_{personal hygiene}

_gmp's

_{our work instructions}

_{right behavior at the work place}

_{corrective and preventive actions and , etc....}

_{after each session, a short quiz, collect it as validation for my documentation.}

_Note:

_{we make food for our guests, same day process, no left-over allowed}

_{staff composed of store keepers, chefs, house keepers, drivers}

_:smile:

Thanks PS1 and Ralh some interesting points there.  Make the training relevant, interesting and comfortable (as possible :smile:)...all good.

Another point is know your audience e.g. language, education level, experience, learning difficulties and understand different people like to learn differently.  Not easy to cater for everyone, but a mix of written, visual, audio and practical work best...oh and have fun, if at all possible. :thumbup:

Regards,

Simon

i hold a monthly training for all employees. GMP's/Food Safety, Lock out / tag out, Hazard communications, Severe weather safety, forklift, drug and alcohol policy, emergency action and fire safety (we have the fire dept. come down and we actually put out controlled fires so everyone knows how to use a fire extinguisher.) First Aid/blood borne pathogen, ppe/personal safety, and I do a HACCP class more as a reminder to everyone. I also have our HACCP team that meets monthly for training.discussion.

That's quite a package Brian, what's the format of the training, is it classroom based or shop floor?

The poll so far shows a lot of training hours are being put in which is good news.

No votes for zero days so far!

Regards,

Simon

Classroom based. I meet once a month with both shifts. (2 shift operation here)

Classroom based. I meet once a month with both shifts. (2 shift operation here)

That's quite a commitment Brian, I'm sure the constant refreshment pays dividends.

In my opinion it's the best way.

Thanks Simon. It has. Since i first came on board here the attitudes have change drastically, even the owners! They are realizing that food safety/quality IS important! :)

Thanks Simon. It has. Since i first came on board here the attitudes have change drastically, even the owners! They are realizing that food safety/quality IS important! :)

Yes and the PCA scandal sure gave you a leg up; you were right to use that in your armoury; nothing wrong with that.

"Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others"
Otto von Bismarck (apparently)

1-2 Days for GMP and HACCP only. Other department do their refresher training, this is a mixed classroom based and shop floor based, GMP in the morning classroom based and in the afternoon shop floor base which they need to spot the incorrect practices and they will explain how it was wrong and what is the corrective action. For HACCP the same, but we are mainly discuss on OPRP and CCP and what are the pros and cons if both have been deviation.

We updated our food safety refresher training a lot in 2019 and did a lot more site-specific training and job specific training with all employees at our site.  We did a total of 25 modules of food safety, preventive controls, GMP, regulatory requirements, sanitation, documentation, and the qualified individual training.  The new thing we implemented in 2019 were skill audits of employees in each department.  Instead of a knowledge check showing understanding following the training, we did individual skill audits to make sure the training was understood and effective.  Training was mostly done in house and we broke up the trainings into 1 hour training sessions where we reviewed a module or 2 at a time.  Then the skill audits were completed individually at a later date.  We did have a vendor come in and do our chemical and ATP training. Certificates were provided at completion of those trainings from the vendor.

Over all I am happy with the progress we made in 2019 and I feel that the training was pretty effective.  We still have room for improvement (who doesn't), but I am happy with the progress we made in 2019. :doctor: