Anyone used 'scare tactic' training, or notices, etc.?

Morning All,

First time poster, here, and my first post is a bit of a rant.

I work in a low risk facility, but the attitude of the production management/supervisory team is bordering on incompetence (it's beyond incompetence really), especially as we have some 'free-from' ranges.

Has anybody ever employed any 'scare tactic' training, or notices, etc.?  

Could you point me in the right direction, please?

Thanks

Ian

In general I find " scare " tactics don't work, you'll have to put in the work to train, train, train.

Now, if you can get cogent examples of what happens when procedures are not adhered to f. ex Allergen contamination and the resultant effects on people.

There is a good example of this from last year with Pret a Manger and the sandwiches. 

So determine your risks and try to find examples of control being lost and the consequences, if you can put in a bit about costs, loss of reputation, possible litigation that always helps, especially with senior management. 

Sometimes if the management are really recalcitrant, I would get auditors to have a stern word to reinforce what you are saying ( if you have external audits) make sure the whole team attend opening and closing meetings as they soon learn that food safety is everybody's business and not just QC's.

If the problem if with the management/supervisory team then I'm not sure the notices would help?

I would also say that it it not low risk if you have free from ranges? I know in theory that it might be as a definition of what you are manufacturing but if you are claiming products as being free from and you are worried that production are not taking food safety issues seriously then that's pretty high risk to the consumers.

I agree that you really need to hammer home the seriousness of allergens. Do all employees have general allergen awareness training?

It's hard because without the buy in from the more senior members of staff, getting everyone else to follow the rules is even more difficult.

Also, if not an auditor (as suggested above) is there anyone else who can maybe influence them? It can feel disheartening when you aren't being listened to but sometimes it takes another persons view to get people to see that it's not just you being 'over the top' and that these things are actually important.

Good luck!

Hi guys,

I am a fan of the idea behind scare tactics as long as you don't pussy-foot around the actual possibilities of negligence. Saying 'you could give someone an allergic reaction or give them diarrhoea' is, while a nightmare for QA staff, not something I find upsets operatives enough to revolutionise their working culture. 'The consumer' is generally a nameless, faceless person who probably lives miles and miles away from the site and will likely never have any contact with the staff producing their product.

Making extreme examples and making it personal to them ('how does the prospect of someone's nan's death being down to your behaviour grab you?' or 'just imagine for one minute that your son chokes to death on that because he has a peanut allergy, even though it's supposedly a peanut-free product...') has to be the way for scare tactics, because that's often the only thing that can actually SCARE people.

I would say notices that communicate the full extent of the possibilities of negligence can be helpful, but face-to-face communication hits the message home a lot harder in my opinion.

Welcome Ian,

I wouldn't go as far as using the term "scare", but in training I always like to mention real life examples of consequences where possible and find it holds the attention of the audience better than simply listing things they should and shouldn't do.

I'd like to think that staff comply with safety/quality requirements for the purpose of maintaining high standards of high hygiene and quality (LOL) but I've come to terms with the fact that sometimes a more effective method of motivation is communicating a consequence that directly affects the staff. I.e. "wash hands for X food safety reasons, but this is a procedure that will be monitored by QA/CCTV also".

Thanks all, for the responses.

Yeah, real life examples are more what I was talking about rather than "Do it, or I'll cut your finger off!!"  They're surprisingly harder to find, on t' web, than you (I) might think.

I'll print a couple off and stick them to the back of the toilet cubicle doors (they may as well have something to read, while they're in there), as a starter.

Andy, your "'The consumer' is generally a nameless, faceless person who probably lives miles and miles away", is exactly the attitude, here, of the production management.

The MD has the outlook "What are the risks; we need to assess them" which is code for "What's the risk of me being caught"**

** I feel obliged, though, to say that this is from a quality perspective; I'd hate anybody to thing I'd let him get away with any food safety breaches.

Ian

In addition to the widely publicised Pret story, there was a prosecution last year that you can cite - if potentially killing people isn't enough motivation for senior management (not meant as a criticism of you - most QA people will have dealt with this level of wilful indifference at points in their careers ;) ) then perhaps the prospect of them getting jail time for it will be...

https://www.bbc.com/...ashire-46123858

One thing you can try during the training is asking people if they know anyone who might be affected? Allergies seem to be on the increase, and human nature is such that "this might hurt my friend Bob" is often more motivating than "this might do something to someone I'll never meet and about whom I don't really care". Combined with helping them understand more about why they're doing things it will hopefully start to make some progress for you.

Here is a book I read when I was going through something similar. Not all of it applies, some of the examples are rather silly, but I thought it had some good ideas in it too. Good luck, I know how hard this can be. 

Also, I definitely used every audit as an excuse to get things implemented or changed. I remember my coworker putting in a maintenance request for some damaged plastic curtains that were in place to keep insects etc out, and his request was voided by maintenance. When asked about it, the maintenance manager said there was no upcoming audit. So that had to get escalated... 

We are coming up on a combination introduction (as to what we are doing at a client location) and training session for all management and general employees at a seafood company.

I think in some ways we may be using a little bit of scare tactics and a lot of "consequences" of actions.

Every action that someone does creates a consequence, good or bad or in-between. 

At this client we have a problem - because they failed to heed the warnings of termination by two of their major customers to get SQF certified by such and such dates, they lost that business.

The bad action resulted in the loss (or consequence) of over $10,000,000 a year and growing.

In order to reclaim that amount of business they had to go out and get a lot of smaller accounts - having the consequence of much higher operating expenses and since they had to handle all deliveries on thier own fleet of trucks that added a lot of loss in transportation expenses - for every dollar that comes in from a small account they spend 75 cents - for a large account they spend 25 cents.

In our opening I will be introducing myself, our company, what we do and then mention how the company will go out of business... if we can not get their cooperation and that means embracing change, training and the end result is the company gets in the channel to regain, retain business and grow.

I know we are going to lose employees, there are some that are not going to get onboard and that even includes management personnel as it is one thing to say they are looking forward to getting certified and all the business that comes from  that and quite another to actually do the work involved, be trained, etc.

Consequences yes, scare tactics no - use real stories, real examples of what can, can not, may happen, etc.

You cannot use scare tactics in a first world country. The people are just not scared to lose job here because there are so many around. And the HR policies are so elaborate that scaring an employee can be a discrimination case etc.

You can use scare tactics in a 3rd world or developing countries because, there is just too much to lose for an employee if they are let go from work, and honestly those countries do not have strong law to back up an employee.

Having said that, scare tactics works if you are those countries. Since you are not, real life examples that appeal to emotions are much more appreciated. Like someone died from food poisoning - showing their name, face and the grief that their relatives went through, there are some stories on-line. A company almost filing for bankruptcy because of lawsuits it acquired after several people died from food poisoning - get names of actual companies etc., another is research on studies conducted how much a company spends on a recall, this can convince your management that a recall is a no-no for financials etc. etc.