14 replies to this topic

[GMO]

I'm starting to see a lot of staff turnover in Quality and Food Safety.  Part of this is cost cutting.  Part of this is people choosing to leave.  

 

This and personal experience of myself, family and friends is making me wonder...

 

1.  Is the job of a Technical specialist / Manager etc getting harder because the culture is getting more focused on money to the exclusion of ethics?

2.  Or am I just getting old?

[jfrey123]

Culture feels good where I'm at.  CEO told my boss, VP of food safety and regulatory, that he wants to push Food Safety Culture and Sustainability for our company.  My boss asked if it was a paper tiger or if CEO wanted actual teeth, and CEO opted for teeth.  Wants it to be something we can broadcast outwardly and take credit for with our customers, and improving all of it is within official strategic goals for 2025.

 

Couple of customer complaints have highlighted some shortcomings at the facility level for a couple of sites, and instead of shifting the blame to only bad employee behaviors or lack of management, corporate execs are taking our corporate QA feedback and analysis to help improve.  Part of it is of course to protect profits, but they're seeing ROI for these improvements.

 

Turnover in all departments is a difficult aspect we're facing, in all departments.  I'll just say that Production Managers make for poor temporary replacements for Sanitation Managers lol.

[siskos]

Depends on the organization.

I am QA & Production manager in a flatbread plant and an external consultant in another food production company (not relevant to each other). CEOs have different points of interest and they focus in different things than we are. Their purpose is to make money and if that goes through a high quality product then you are valuable. If not ... you are not...

Anyway we have the obligation to tell the right thing always not matter what. If they do not like it, they do not deserve us.  

[Setanta]

In an slight alteration of the saying "Two steps forward, one step back"

 

For every couple of steps, we seem to backslide at least one...

[TimG]

I feel the food manufacturing industry is struggling when it comes to culture. I've seen it in walkthroughs of some of the places I've interviewed with, in the decline of quality in products I've purchased for years, and in the marked increase of recalls coming across my FDA feed.

In facilities I've been involved in I've noticed employee retention is at all-time lows, specifically with those hired in the past 4 years. It takes quite a bit of training to be confident in leaving line workers to do their tasks without constant supervision. That is a challenge when 7 out of 10 line workers don't make it to their 90 days.

 

What's going to fix retention? More money, 'flexible' work weeks, something else? (my girlfriend works 3-12s, either M-W or W-F).

[Shrimper]

I feel the food manufacturing industry is struggling when it comes to culture. I've seen it in walkthroughs of some of the places I've interviewed with, in the decline of quality in products I've purchased for years, and in the marked increase of recalls coming across my FDA feed.

In facilities I've been involved in I've noticed employee retention is at all-time lows, specifically with those hired in the past 4 years. It takes quite a bit of training to be confident in leaving line workers to do their tasks without constant supervision. That is a challenge when 7 out of 10 line workers don't make it to their 90 days.

 

What's going to fix retention? More money, 'flexible' work weeks, something else? (my girlfriend works 3-12s, either M-W or W-F).

 

Hey Tim,,

 

Funny you mention flexible work weeks and 12-hour shifts. I feel that may be a part of a problem with worker retention. Personally, as the QA manager of my plant I am here from 7am to 5-6pm Monday through Friday. I don't expect everyone here to follow this, but some shifts are crazy long and makes a job like food packing difficult to enjoy for an extended period. Just my opinion for that point.

[GMO]

I think we all did those crazy hours as a QA Manager.  But also we bore the brunt of them.  I do get that Gen Z are less inclined to work like fools for future reward and I don't blame them.  

 

But it seems like we almost have a perfect storm of risk coming.  

 

• Technical experts retiring or leaving the industry.
• New Technical people not wanting to work the hours or the intensity so stepping away from food or moving into less front line roles.
• A squeeze on costs the likes of which I've never seen in 25 years.
• A drive for more complexity to drive margin.
• All of the above burning out technical and operations staff so they do one or more of; get sick, get disengaged or leave.

 

I hope I'm wrong.  But I was talking to an Ops expert recently who said in a resigned way "I've told Technical to lose people" (hence my other post on coming to the party at least a bit on cost control). 

 

My answer though was "how?" 

 

He said "I don't care".

 

That is a recipe for anything seen as "nice to have" going out of the window.  And lots of what improves your culture feels at the time like a "nice to have".

[Debsday]

A lot of it is money. I went from working for a very large company with lots of technical people to a small start up where I am the only quality person. Quality costs money and production makes money so if the budget will only justify a couple of new people, they will go to production. I work lots of extra hours to keep the FSSC certification and each time I ask for help I get told "see you did well without help". I think the only way to have management understand the worth of quality is to allow us to fail an audit, and I have trouble doing that. 

I have a lot of experience in quality and can see retirement in a couple of years so am able to push through. If I was younger I would not stay at this company.

[TimG]

I will admit that the changes I've noticed had me seriously considering an industry change. When I sit down and try to determine where my skillset would work that would give me the most life fulfillment and work enjoyment, it always comes back to 'lottery winner' or 'inheritance windfall'. I don't gamble much and come from a long line of poors, so I guess I need to go back to the drawing board.

[Scampi]

The newest generation are all (almost anyway) still living at home (soaring cost of housing relative to income) and as such, even well into their 20s have ZERO vested interest in coming to work regularly

 

Current employer has grown too much in a short period of time and the cracks are showing across the board----has turned into a corporation without coporate governance

 

QA/QC should NEVER be the culture driver, that always come from the top, and you 100% reap what you sow

 

Of all my (ah hem-many) working years, I've only had 3 standout employers where the culture was amazing. 1 publicly traded massive company, 1 privately owned massive company and one large privately owned company. What they all had in common was:

 

1. Amazing plant leadership

2. All employees being held accountable for actions

3. leveraging all employees to reach -even if they fail

 

It's really NO DIFFERENT that raising children IMHO

rules balanced with increasing freedoms

 

There's no reward without some risk which applies equally to life as it does to running a company and managing employees

[Shrimper]

The newest generation are all (almost anyway) still living at home (soaring cost of housing relative to income) and as such, even well into their 20s have ZERO vested interest in coming to work regularly

 

Current employer has grown too much in a short period of time and the cracks are showing across the board----has turned into a corporation without coporate governance

 

QA/QC should NEVER be the culture driver, that always come from the top, and you 100% reap what you sow

 

Of all my (ah hem-many) working years, I've only had 3 standout employers where the culture was amazing. 1 publicly traded massive company, 1 privately owned massive company and one large privately owned company. What they all had in common was:

 

1. Amazing plant leadership

2. All employees being held accountable for actions

3. leveraging all employees to reach -even if they fail

 

It's really NO DIFFERENT that raising children IMHO

rules balanced with increasing freedoms

 

There's no reward without some risk which applies equally to life as it does to running a company and managing employees

 

Scampi,

 

Ever since I started working where I am, my boss in QA always said this job is 50% babysitting. Some days it definitely is. I totally agree with all your points. When the managers skip out on basic food safety things the rest of the crew sees no reason to. It is a difficult thing to change when it has been going on for 20+ years!

Edited by Shrimper, 30 January 2025 - 09:15 PM.

[GMO]

I totally get what you're both saying.  Whenever I do a training session about trying to encourage the right behaviours in QFS I always talk about how you encourage the right behaviours in kids.  I.e. through rewarding the behaviours you want.

 

I also completely agree culture comes from the top.  In one very big and very profitable organisation, I was told the following by the person who was my boss' boss:

 

"I know people said in our culture engagement survey that it's all about product out of the door but I make no excuse for that."

 

And when I did a huge piece of work to explain to my site Director that some of the QC testing needed to be resourced differently, he just said "no", even though the business was highly profitable and it was stopping some of the improvements we needed.  

 

I found in that and one other organisation that I would be increasingly asked to justify spend in a way that other functions were not.  That more and more MDs and Operational leaders were coming from commercial backgrounds, not even operational ones.  And in lots of business I can see me, and others, sat there thinking "WTAF is going on?"

 

I think Gen Z's general "I will not put up with this BS" attitude that Scampi alluded to is part of it, we're all a bit less tolerant though too I think, particularly after Covid.  And cost issues are more prevalent.  But the "I do not care" attitude from leaders I'm seeing is new.  I think.  Or it's new that they're being honest about it.

 

I'd say there were two sites I've worked at which had a good (not great) culture.

 

1. An SME which went through a major food safety issue.  But in the lead up to that they had huge customer issues.  The burning platforms helped and I think I started off there junior enough to have a manageable remit and not see some of the idiocy going on at the top... So perhaps it wasn't quite as good as I thought...

2. A blue chip who didn't always achieve it but actually tried and measured people on living the values.  Oh how much do places like that REALLY annoy me when they don't though?  I'm sure we've all worked in places like that.  Fancy words on the wall, absolutely never talked about nor lived.  But this place actually tried.

 

The funny thing is the first site I wrote about above, they had great cultural engagement scores.  Then they got a (not very good) survey done for food safety culture.  It was funded through the risk manager and done by a different company.  It wasn't great, I could have done it to be honest, it was only based on the GFSI position paper and PAS320.  I asked in the feedback what they'd scored us at.  Turned out the person commissioning it "didn't want a score".  But being very familiar with both of those publications, I could actually tell the feedback was around the 1-2 level and nobody else was hearing it.  

 

I've always had my suspicious about general cultural engagement measurement.  But the large companies do use it and do listen to it.  But this absolutely blew me away that we had "world class" cultural engagement scores yet weren't prepared to be told our food safety culture score.  So we knew that cultural engagement was BS basically.

[Scampi]

 

 

I've always had my suspicious about general cultural engagement measurement.  But the large companies do use it and do listen to it.  But this absolutely blew me away that we had "world class" cultural engagement scores yet weren't prepared to be told our food safety culture score.  So we knew that cultural engagement was BS basically.

Why do we all come to work everyday????????  The vast majority of people do it for the same thing, the bills need paid and our bellies need filled.  To pretend that any other reason exists, particularly for the folks on the floor is akin to saying the earth is flat because you cannot see the sphere. 

 

Culture when it's all boiled down, is HOW people are treated.  So if you say one thing and do another, the culture will be one of just getting the job done.  If you hold people accountable, and do what you say you will do, the culture will change for the better.

 

 

GFSI pretending that it is anything but this is in exceptionally poor form IMHO

Edited by Scampi, 31 January 2025 - 01:08 PM.

[Setanta]

The 'Say One Thing and Do Another' management style has LONG been an issue for me.

 

I wish CEOs, Senior Managers, Directors of Divisions, etc. would really understand that if you see something needs changing, most times, you need to change, too.

And I get it, looking at those flippant remarks, your personal quirks is hard, but if you want to grow, somethings need to be pruned away.

[GMO]

Why do we all come to work everyday????????  The vast majority of people do it for the same thing, the bills need paid and our bellies need filled.  To pretend that any other reason exists, particularly for the folks on the floor is akin to saying the earth is flat because you cannot see the sphere. 

 

Culture when it's all boiled down, is HOW people are treated.  So if you say one thing and do another, the culture will be one of just getting the job done.  If you hold people accountable, and do what you say you will do, the culture will change for the better.

 

 

GFSI pretending that it is anything but this is in exceptionally poor form IMHO

 

I think it's beyond that. 

 

I have worked at too many companies from the tiny to the enormous.  Culture has a huge influence on whether systems are even created in the first place to whether they are adhered to.  In the weakest cultures, you get stuck in firefighting all the time which increases stress and workload.  Then the pay would never compensate.

 

I agree there are elements of doing what you say, holding people accountable, but so much goes into how that's achieved.  Even "what you say" is a nuanced point.  If your leader who has ultimate accountability for quality is silent on the topic but very vocal about money, what does that do for the culture?  

 

The strongest cultures are not about operators being "done to" either but everyone recognising they have a part to play in that culture.

 

I think a lot of what is coming through from GFSI on culture is poorly understood by people.  I've seen too many sites who think doing an event in their canteen once a year ticks a box and I don't think some of the work out of Campden BRI in the UK has helped as they and BRCGS have tied up with a very top level survey I don't think is any better than cultural engagement scores. 

 

But I've also seen sites where people are choosing CI ideas across balanced scorecards and recognising improving quality is just as much a part of lean as making more stuff.  I suppose engaging your leadership in a culture plan is about "how do I get to that more mature culture?"

 

One of the things we did as part of our culture plan in one site was make sure that quality had a metric in every short interval control meeting.  You might already have this and you'd be right in saying this is as much a CI tool as a cultural one but without having a metric, quality was being discussed only by exception.  That meant that sometimes days went by without it being discussed.  But usage variances were being discussed.  OEE was being discussed.  What would then be important for the operator hearing those messages?

 

I often quote from "Cautionary Tales" which is my favourite podcast in the world.  It's all about learnings from where things have gone wrong.  Often the issues are sad stories and often health and safety related but they're applicable to food safety too.

 

I'll probably forget details but there was a tale about a train junction in the UK during the first world war.  (Link below, it's the second of two short stories on this episode).  What happened was a series of events where the job of the signal men was not as the process was designed to be.  This led to two trains crashing into each other and multiple loss of life.  

 

But what Tim Harford does is neatly describe the cultural norms around the accident which led to it.  That the work had been changed by the employees to suit them but they'd not told their supervisors.  That as a result, records were falsified to hide the changes.  That distractions added to the confusion and that some of the rules set by the leadership were impractical and known to be routinely flouted.

 

What tends to happen in food manufacturing in a case like the above where we have falsification of records, distractions, SOPs not followed, is we discipline the operator.  That may be justified and fair, but what we don't often do (or didn't) is understand the environment the operator was working in.  

 

I've got involved in (and stopped) disciplinaries before where an operator didn't follow an SOP to find that nobody was following it because it was completely unworkable.  I've also found senior leaders turning a blind eye to rule breaking as they want the product out of the door.  In a site with high psychological safety, then people feel able to challenge even those more senior to them or raise that something doesn't work.  In a very top down authoritarian regime (which could still be enforcing following rules), then rule breaking may simply be hidden.

 

That's why I personally don't see the GFSI focussing on this to be a waste of time.  I also see the very high focus on behaviours in health and safety, a function closely allied with ours.

 

Cautionary Tales double header – When a Plague Struck World of Warcraft, and Blood on the Tracks | Tim Harford