Which department handles training in your company?

Since SQF requires us to train our employees every year on General topics as a refresher course other than the new hire orientation.  The training consists of GMP, Food safety and defense, Pest control, Chemical safety, CCP.

We have a training manager for our annual refresher trainings. I would like to know which department handles the trainings in other companies? Does each department handle their own training?

In my experience, the trainings are handled by the department relevant to the topic. In your example, food safety/GMP trainings would be structured according to mandates set by the QA department. QA would develop the content of training sessions and deliver the content (in-person training or via powerpoint slides w/quizzes), and they would coordinate the training schedule with production supervisors to ensure everyone is getting trained. In other words, QA would work with production managers to find the best time to take staff away from work to train them.

A similar situation would happen with employee safety; we had an staff safety/OSHA compliance manager who would develop a training program and deliver it with scheduling help from the other departments that supervised the affected personnel.

The production staff had their own trainers, and they handled technical training for operators (eg, how to run equipment, how to run CIPs, etc)

Hi sqf*practitioner,

It is good that you have a Training Manager that can cover off SQF Food Safety Code: Food Manufacturing requirement 2.9.1.1 The responsibility for establishing and implementing the training needs of the organization’s personnel ……

You sound like you are going along the right lines for your Training Program, departments normally conduct their own training for SOPs specific to that department using Managers, Supervisors or Specific Trainers.

As an example, QA/Laboratory is quite specialised and would need to have specific training for staff involved in sampling and testing of raw materials, packaging, work-in-progress, finished products and environmental monitoring. Normally this would be carried out by trainers who are almost certainly part of the department.

Also note, that the initial and refresher training should also include allergen awareness & any site-specific rules related to that if appropriate.

Kind regards,

Tony