5 replies to this topic

[ddupont4422]

Hi Everyone, I am new to the forum and have been in the food industry for over 10 years. Currently in a new job for about 3 months where I am the Food Safety and Quality Manager. Since being here, I have completed a gap assessment showing major nonconformances that we must address. The CEO and plant manager say we are tight with budget and entering our busy months as we are in the chocolate business so it will have to wait. Everything has not been updated in three years and I feel like they always push everything to the back burner. How can I help to see how they operate is not meeting our NSF standards and we need to change and continuously improve. I have given them my audit findings and still they do not seem to care, only about profit which I understand but this culture of putting quality last and not giving me the authority to change things is making me want to give my notice. 

 

Can anyone help me to get this management to see that just because we have been doing it this way for 25 years does not mean things need to change? They are oblivious. 

 

 

[SQFconsultant]

Only 3 months?

 

Curve is about 6 months.

 

I'd get thru the bust season and plan a way to sell it to them so they see that an investment will pay dividends.

 

Owners need to see a tangible return on investment - you will need to package it and literally sell it to them.

 

You may want to bring in a consultant that can fine tune an operational and capital improvement statement and present same to the owners.

 

We have done this a number of times in the past, it can give you rockets to launch instead of shooting peas with a slingshot.

 

You have to show value to them to win them over, it is just the way it is sometimes. 

[Scampi]

What did they explain would be your mandate when they hired you?

[ddupont4422]

To make the improvements need to adhere to our audit body and to become SQF 

[jfrey123]

I think we've all been here, and it's a sucky position to be in.  You say "major non-conformances" in your first post, but then mention they're looking to go from NSF to SQF, so I'm not entirely sure if you're just seeing major gaps in that transition or things that don't meet your current standard.

 

Anything that's critical and can affect food safety obviously needs to be addressed immediately, and a denial from the CEO and PM to remedy it needs to be documented to cya.

 

Now, as you've done this gap assessment, if you're finding NSF practices that don't meet SQF standards, I would document them on your current assessment with some sort of long-term action plan for each one.  Example:  Some of my current plants had some issues with pallet racking starting to rust.  We documented the finding in internal audits, and it took capital investment from our parent corp to get the remedy but it took some time.  We documented the finding, attached a plan that quotes would be gathered and funded within x amount of days, and while it took multiple months it got done.  If the changes you need to see in your current non-conformities aren't impacting food safety, it can be sufficient to have your CEO/PM write an action plan that shows the issues will be corrected by a specific (ahem, reasonable) date.

[Scampi]

To make the improvements need to adhere to our audit body and to become SQF 

 

If this is in writing, even an email, you've got evidence that they are breaching your employment contract

 

But, as jfrey mentioned, they may not fully understand the large differences in the 2 schemes and may be balking due to lack of understanding

 

This may be a case of a real discussion about expectations for you and the future of the company as a whole...........