11 replies to this topic

[AnnaAnka]

Hi guys,

 

hoping to get some advises from you again!

 

I know that here are several posts about food safety culture already, but my "problem" is that we are a very small company with less than 5 employees in production, and I then think it is very difficult to adapt previously described routines to our company. 

 

Any suggestions to how a food safety culture plan can look like for us? 

 

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

[The Food Scientist]

Hi!

 

I think it would be easier? Because less people? Since you have less people it is easier to let them be and "feel" involved more, that way you have more control. Thats one way to improve your culture. Give them a class ( there is a webinar on this website about improving your FS culture that would help alot). Let them do a questionnaire or test to see how much they take it seriously and it will let them feel part of it. Post signs around the company. Another way is to do a "food safety employee of the month". Where you can assess who really takes it seriously every month and perhaps give them a small gift?  Hope it helps.

[AnnaAnka]

Thanks for the feedback! One thing (the only thing actually!) on my plan so far is to involve production staff in regular meetings where we discuss demands from authorities, standards and customers. And then interview them after a while to see if their understanding for food safety has improved. But that's how far I have come.. I will look into the webinar you mention, and see if I can put together a training session with following test/questionnaire. 

 

But I think it is so difficult to set up an action plan with measurable actions, that also ensures that all relevan section/roles are covered...

 

Hi!

 

I think it would be easier? Because less people? Since you have less people it is easier to let them be and "feel" involved more, that way you have more control. Thats one way to improve your culture. Give them a class ( there is a webinar on this website about improving your FS culture that would help alot). Let them do a questionnaire or test to see how much they take it seriously and it will let them feel part of it. Post signs around the company. Another way is to do a "food safety employee of the month". Where you can assess who really takes it seriously every month and perhaps give them a small gift?  Hope it helps.

[The Food Scientist]

Check this one out:

 

https://www.ifsqn.co...safety-culture/

 

Also you can search for many other webinars on here that can also be free. But the one I attached was sooo helpful.

[pHruit]

Hi guys,

 

hoping to get some advises from you again!

 

I know that here are several posts about food safety culture already, but my "problem" is that we are a very small company with less than 5 employees in production, and I then think it is very difficult to adapt previously described routines to our company. 

 

Any suggestions to how a food safety culture plan can look like for us? 

 

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

 

How many employees do you have in total?
Your Food Safety Culture approach should ideally extend beyond just production. You want people in charge of buying things, selling things, looking after financial stuff to also start thinking in terms of food safety, as in my experience they are some of the parties most likely to want to put money before food safety when there is a direct and mutually exclusive choice between the two

So I'd adopt the questionnaire assessment approach that most of us seem to be using, and push it out to everyone in the business. What you find from that should guide your approach in terms of next steps to improve the culture.

With such a small team there are things that would be feasible for you that are potentially much harder for larger companies - for example some local authority environmental health departments offer on-site Food Hygiene training at really very low cost, and you could have this done by 100% of the company's employees if your business is very small. This really should help improve awareness across all staff (and if you're lucky it might also mean fewer of them leave unpleasant remnants of lunch festering in the office tea room ).

[Kit2019]

Hi AnnaAnka

 

We are also a small company. I was brought on in Nov last year because it is getting larger and they needed a dedicated FS/QM person.

 

I hope your situation is better than mine. Our size is proving to be a weakness -- senior mgmt's word is law, and they are completely shut down to any employee feedback. They threw a real fit now that we have to implement this part of the code.

 

We conducted a survey, analyzed the results (altho analysis of the negative feedback basically concluded "employees are wrong"  ). Our commitment is to have an anonymous tip box, mgmt talks one-on-one informally to a couple of employees every month, and re-survey in three years.

 

Seems like a recipe for failure to me. I'm trying to push a more inclusive mindset. On the other hand -- and take this with a grain of salt because this is my first experience with BRC standards -- BRC seems to have made this section very vague with the intent of feeling out its effects and then adjusting in the future according to how it plays out.

 

Our auditor was unconcerned with our methods. 

[pHruit]

Hi AnnaAnka

 

We are also a small company. I was brought on in Nov last year because it is getting larger and they needed a dedicated FS/QM person.

 

I hope your situation is better than mine. Our size is proving to be a weakness -- senior mgmt's word is law, and they are completely shut down to any employee feedback. They threw a real fit now that we have to implement this part of the code.

 

We conducted a survey, analyzed the results (altho analysis of the negative feedback basically concluded "employees are wrong"  ). Our commitment is to have an anonymous tip box, mgmt talks one-on-one informally to a couple of employees every month, and re-survey in three years.

 

Seems like a recipe for failure to me. I'm trying to push a more inclusive mindset. On the other hand -- and take this with a grain of salt because this is my first experience with BRC standards -- BRC seems to have made this section very vague with the intent of feeling out its effects and then adjusting in the future according to how it plays out.

 

Our auditor was unconcerned with our methods. 

 

I believe these points are related, but would plan on the basis that BRC auditors will take a more detailed interest sooner rather than later

The overall impression of implementation, as corroborated by the auditors with whom I've spoken over the last 9 months or so, is that the 1st year of audits against Issue 8 have been somewhat softer in this area - in part there is an element of perhaps kindly allowing us to all get to grips with it, but also very much by necessity as sites need to time to go through the first stages of the process (gathering data etc) before being able to identify what they need to improve, fully implement a plan, measure whether it's actually working etc.

I'd expect the next audits to be a touch more thorough in this area, with auditors wanting to see evidence of actual things happening.

I really feel for you in this context, as I've done the small company / headstrong owner thing and it is hard in general in terms of quality and safety, without the added challenge of trying to cajole them towards helping (or at least not actively hindering - arguably they are one of the more significant issues!) the food safety culture.

[Kit2019]

pHruit - I hope you are right! I'm actually finding a lot of good resources here on IFSQN for building cohesion and individual investment. Helps a lot to feel empowered in what is otherwise a bit of a paralyzing situation! I'm sure the ideal situation is somewhere between what I want and what mgmt wants, so if all else fails hopefully this upcoming year will provide some illumination from BRC and here in our facility.

 

Fingers crossed!!! 

[AnnaAnka]

Hi Kit,

 

I also was brought in November last year because they needed a dedicated QM, so in the same boat there

 

But, in my company it is the other way around. The management is very commited! I just had a survey, but on a scale from 0 (very unsatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied) I got an average score of 4.5 on all questions! My hope was that at least one area would stick out, so we could initiate some actions to improve the result.. 

 

So now I'm not sure how to proceed...

Hi AnnaAnka

 

We are also a small company. I was brought on in Nov last year because it is getting larger and they needed a dedicated FS/QM person.

 

I hope your situation is better than mine. Our size is proving to be a weakness -- senior mgmt's word is law, and they are completely shut down to any employee feedback. They threw a real fit now that we have to implement this part of the code.

 

We conducted a survey, analyzed the results (altho analysis of the negative feedback basically concluded "employees are wrong"  ). Our commitment is to have an anonymous tip box, mgmt talks one-on-one informally to a couple of employees every month, and re-survey in three years.

 

Seems like a recipe for failure to me. I'm trying to push a more inclusive mindset. On the other hand -- and take this with a grain of salt because this is my first experience with BRC standards -- BRC seems to have made this section very vague with the intent of feeling out its effects and then adjusting in the future according to how it plays out.

 

Our auditor was unconcerned with our methods. 

[Kit2019]

Hi Kit,

 

I also was brought in November last year because they needed a dedicated QM, so in the same boat there

 

But, in my company it is the other way around. The management is very commited! I just had a survey, but on a scale from 0 (very unsatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied) I got an average score of 4.5 on all questions! My hope was that at least one area would stick out, so we could initiate some actions to improve the result.. 

 

So now I'm not sure how to proceed...

 

Congrats!!! Sounds like you're in a great environment!

I like what pHruit said about involving everyone on the team, that seems like a great tactic for a place as small as yours.

Do you have an anonymous tip box? That's something simple that you can do that won't likely have a negative effect to your already positive employee feedback.

 

We did that, and we included in our monthly management meetings that managers will check in on employees and report any employee concerns. Our policy states we'll re-survey 3 years from the date of the initial. I take this all with a grain of salt, as I could easily see more position statements coming out from BRC. They already released one specifying companies won't be held too close under the microscope in the first year after v. 8 change, because it's difficult to assess accurately in such a small time frame.

[dshapos]

 2020 FOOD SAFETY CULTURE QUESTIONNAIRE TEMPLATE.xlsx   246.23KB   827 downloads

Here's a template I use.  It's based on the white paper from GFSI on Food Safety Culture.  After the responses come back, I tabulate them, then put them into tables as % of total responses.  These are then turned into bar graphs which give great visual representations of each answer.  I did the first set last year and used those graphs as a comparison against this year to see where we improved, declined, stayed the same.  Then we had a senior management meeting to discuss the results and determine what areas we were going to focus on for the year and how, with benchmark follow up dates of quarterly reviews.

[Gracezy]

2020 FOOD SAFETY CULTURE QUESTIONNAIRE TEMPLATE.xlsx

Here's a template I use.  It's based on the white paper from GFSI on Food Safety Culture.  After the responses come back, I tabulate them, then put them into tables as % of total responses.  These are then turned into bar graphs which give great visual representations of each answer.  I did the first set last year and used those graphs as a comparison against this year to see where we improved, declined, stayed the same.  Then we had a senior management meeting to discuss the results and determine what areas we were going to focus on for the year and how, with benchmark follow up dates of quarterly reviews.

Can you please advise on the details when you put them into tables as % of total responses? Thank you in advance!