Food Safety Training in Covid Times
Hello, at my company, we administer food safety training every 3 months to employees. Normally this is done with a 20-25 minute presentation in the break room for each shift. Due to Covid however, the last training we had I decided that putting upwards of 50 people in a room together for a safety training was probably not wise, so instead, I created a training document to read and a quiz to fill out and turn in. The result of this was... okay. It wasn't ideal, but I wasn't sure what else to do. For the next training, assuming that traditional in-person classes are still not happening, I would like to do something different.
I was wondering if anyone could share what they've done for alternative food safety training.
Small group training, as well as utilizing an online platform for participants to view powerpoints/videos and take a subsequent quiz.
Unfortunately, during these social distancing times, there's not much else to do. Good tip from MsMars.
We also did what you did, a short and quick quiz, with good results. I tried to put a few "fun" questions in as well so not to loose their attention/focus.
And sorry to change focus a little bit but I'm surprised at the frequency of training.
Every 3 months? So four times each year you have all staff leave their positions to do training? Or is it different persons each time?
How long does the training last?
Is this "normal" practice? What is the frequency for the other people of this forum?
We barely get one opportunity during the year...
Small group training, as well as utilizing an online platform for participants to view powerpoints/videos and take a subsequent quiz.
Exactly the same approach here. It is more time consuming as you're having to do a shift's worth of people in multiple sessions, but it's more effective to get this direct engagement if possible IMO.
Unfortunately, during these social distancing times, there's not much else to do. Good tip from MsMars.
We also did what you did, a short and quick quiz, with good results. I tried to put a few "fun" questions in as well so not to loose their attention/focus.
And sorry to change focus a little bit but I'm surprised at the frequency of training.
Every 3 months? So four times each year you have all staff leave their positions to do training? Or is it different persons each time?
How long does the training last?
Is this "normal" practice? What is the frequency for the other people of this forum?
We barely get one opportunity during the year...
We do the training either before or after their shifts so it doesn't interfere with their work. I've been with another company that only does it once a year. The once a year training takes much longer (over an hour) and I've noticed it becomes difficult to keep their attention. The short, 20-25 minute trainings every 3 months are more of a hassle for myself, but it gets to the point, and it's a good way to engage with employees more frequently.
We would
We do the training either before or after their shifts so it doesn't interfere with their work. I've been with another company that only does it once a year. The once a year training takes much longer (over an hour) and I've noticed it becomes difficult to keep their attention. The short, 20-25 minute trainings every 3 months are more of a hassle for myself, but it gets to the point, and it's a good way to engage with employees more frequently.
We would never be able (or allowed) to keep staff after shift has ended. Even for training purposes.
Hello e.rubin,
It is really a hard time for the manufacturing to keep going amid this pandemic. We are forced to reduced our workforce by 50% because we really maintain social distancing. In our plant, we conduct training inside our production area before the production starts. An hour earlier is enough. We have only one shift, that is may be our advantage.
regards,
redfox
Hi All,
This has been a very helpful thread as I have been wondering the same thing since our yearly refresher training is coming up.
While brainstorming this I was thinking of some different ways to administer the training without having a ton of people in one room.
We usually do our refresher training through a PowerPoint presentation followed by quizzes. I was thinking for this year just making a print out of all of our PowerPoint slides and having them take this home to review then the next day at work giving everyone the quizzes in small groups in hopes that they reviewed the hand outs the night before. Not ideal but better than having everyone all together in the same room and at least this way it will cut down on the amount of time that they are in the same room as well.
Would like to get some thoughts on what you guys think about this.
Thank you
Chris
We only train once a year (less than 10 employees) and we do the online training with the Local Health authority.
For covid this year, we did do a special training. We set our employees up with Zoom and did the training (in-house) and on-line with several devices, so we could distance appropriately.
The CNESST (Government workman's health & safety here in Quebec) did a special training with the employees to sensitize them to the reality of Covid, and to the audit that we will be doing on Sept 3 to ensure we are doing everything right.
I'm not sure I could say that most of them take it seriously and I'm certain that most of them were asleep by the time it was done; so if you do this way, ensure EACH employee has their own camera so you can see their individual attentiveness. We failed to be able to monitor that part of that training, unfortunately.
Hope this helps.
There was an earlier post on training amidst COVID 19 where someone suggested the use of 'PowToon' (powtoon.com) to create online videos for training.
I took this suggestion and have since been creating my training slides with audio and has been very well received.