36 replies to this topic

[Scampi]

I suppose I always see value in the work, even if upper management don't.  That was kind of my point.  That on this, even Technical people don't seem to be seeing the value in it.

 

My point is that this isn't technical problem----we CANNOT change the culture UNLESS upper management sees the value   You're suggesting we have the power to enact change in the entire facility on our own    While I agree, most of us are super heroes running on integrity and caffeine, we do not, in fact have much power within most facilities

 

If senior management allows visitors to walk the floor without following all the rules, or management choses not to discipline repeat GMP offenders, HTH are we going to change the culture??????

[GMO]

My point is that this isn't technical problem----we CANNOT change the culture UNLESS upper management sees the value   You're suggesting we have the power to enact change in the entire facility on our own    While I agree, most of us are super heroes running on integrity and caffeine, we do not, in fact have much power within most facilities

 

If senior management allows visitors to walk the floor without following all the rules, or management choses not to discipline repeat GMP offenders, HTH are we going to change the culture??????

 

I get that. It's fair.  And I've worked at a few companies because I've left companies who I've tried and failed to influence.  But our job is 20% science, 80% influencing in my view.  I'm not a super hero.  (I hate those attempts at culture depicting super heroes but that's another story.)  But I have to be able to influence.  Even those more powerful than me.  It might take time but I'll invest that time and either slowly move them or leave.  Otherwise my job is not doable.  

 

Am I being too simplistic?

 

Because you're assuming that leaders won't be open to this once they understand it (and few do).  But what if they are?  What if this does get people on board with supporting Technical and Quality?  What if, even if it starts as lip service it leads to genuine change?

 

I just find it surprising.  I know that some areas of standards people will only do because it's in the standard.  But perhaps, over time, that changes and they start to see the value?  Maybe the same will happen here.  

 

I would hate to work somewhere where senior managers were so dismissal of food safety but also be in a situation where I felt like I couldn't influence that.  That's being totally powerless.  What's the point?

[GMO]

A few months on and 62% of respondents only have a food safety culture plan because the standard tells them to.

 

I find this fascinating.

 

Many years ago, health and safety functions started looking into behaviours and how they could influence people safety outcomes.  You could pretty much take any internationally known disaster and find behavioural causes for it, causes which had some chance of being prevented had they been recognised.  I'll give an example:

 

MS Herald of Free Enterprise - Wikipedia

 

As with most disasters, this was multifactorial.  

• The business of cross channel ferries was extremely competitive.
• The ship was in a port they didn't normally dock in.
• The bow doors were meant to be shut by someone who was on a break but he fell asleep.
• The person who was meant to check the doors were shut assumed he was on the way and didn't confirm it.
• Assumptions were made without any data.
• There was no line of site from the captain on the bridge to this safety critical activity.

 

In the inquiry several causes were found which included

• Poor communication and poor working relationships between managers and operators. 
• Poor ship design which was prioritised for speed not safety.
• Failure to adapt to the situation of a different port.
• Failure to act on a previous near miss on the sister ship and, in fact, as no harm resulted, a belief that it was safe to sail with the doors open prevailed.

 

I can see so many parallels in what happened on that ferry to what happens with food safety in factories.  Prioritising money over safety.  Poor communication.  Someone missing a critical check.  Near misses not acted on.  Failure to adapt in a food safe way when something unusual happens.  Lack of verification assuming someone else has done the job. Equipment design is focused on speed not food safety.

 

Yet we're mostly just doing it because we're told.  Even though there is so much data out there saying it's a HUGE contributory factor in incidents.

 

A follow up question:  I agree, I wouldn't want Technical leading this change, but do we all accept it might be our job to influence others they need to support and eventually drive this change?  If so, what are you doing to make that happen? 

 

As an aside, no H&S person would not see this as their role to influence leaders to drive change on behavioural safety / safety culture.  I find it FASCINATING that something which is driven by similar behaviours has so little buy in from the Technical community (not just here but on sites I visit).  Many are playing absolute lip service to it all.

[MDaleDDF]

What if your culture doesn't need changing.   What if you're a small place, very safe product, and you have buy in from management and employees alike.   You've never had a food safety issue in 75 years of operation.   But you still have to have this in place and show you're improving, and do paperwork up the wazoo....

 

yawn.

I can see how larger places with more employees and risky products would benefit from this.   We don't.   We do it!  But honestly it doesn't do much for us here...Just another hoop to jump through and a box to check imho.

[GMO]

What if your culture doesn't need changing.   What if you're a small place, very safe product, and you have buy in from management and employees alike.   You've never had a food safety issue in 75 years of operation.   But you still have to have this in place and show you're improving, and do paperwork up the wazoo....

 

yawn.

I can see how larger places with more employees and risky products would benefit from this.   We don't.   We do it!  But honestly it doesn't do much for us here...Just another hoop to jump through and a box to check imho.

 

Then you record it and identify leading metrics to spot any might drop off so you can react and actions to maintain not improve.  You make sure your onboarding is superb to indoctrinate new employees.  Why would it be different to health and safety?  Or do you just decide one day that work is done and it's not worth trying to continue the work to make sure people aren't dicks who could hurt themselves or others?

[MDaleDDF]

Then you record it and identify leading metrics to spot any might drop off so you can react and actions to maintain not improve.  You make sure your onboarding is superb to indoctrinate new employees.  Why would it be different to health and safety?  Or do you just decide one day that work is done and it's not worth trying to continue the work to make sure people aren't dicks who could hurt themselves or others?

Ye-ah, like I said, that's what I'm doing.... 

[TimG]

What if your culture doesn't need changing.   What if you're a small place, very safe product, and you have buy in from management and employees alike.   You've never had a food safety issue in 75 years of operation.   But you still have to have this in place and show you're improving, and do paperwork up the wazoo....

 

yawn.

 

To me it's bleed over of that corporate mindset that you always have to move forward. Always more profits, always leaner, always!! 

'Culture' to me has turned into too much of a buzzword in our industry.

Educate, reward good behavior, discipline rule infractions; that's how you maintain a system of rules/policies. I'm not here to reach souls and hearts, this isn't church.

[GMO]

Educate, reward good behavior, discipline rule infractions; that's how you maintain a system of rules/policies. I'm not here to reach souls and hearts, this isn't church.

 

I wouldn't be working in it if it was church but if you don't think reward and discipline is how people at least start to reach hearts and minds, I'd wonder what you think does?

 

 

Ye-ah, like I said, that's what I'm doing.... 

 

I don't doubt in your case you are.  But I've not found a single site yet who is.  Or who is even close.  But if you're measuring those leading metrics as well, then great.  Some of us see new requirements in standards and are already compliant because of the site we are or the other customers we supply.  The vast majority in this case are so far off compliant with the clause, let alone the intent it's kind of ridiculous.

[jfrey123]

A few months on and 62% of respondents only have a food safety culture plan because the standard tells them to.

 

I find this fascinating.

 

[snip]

 

A follow up question:  I agree, I wouldn't want Technical leading this change, but do we all accept it might be our job to influence others they need to support and eventually drive this change?  If so, what are you doing to make that happen? 

 

Snipped for length, but I don't think most of us would disagree with you that having tools in place for food safety are universally good.  I'm with other posters who indeed have strong food safety culture within their plants: they train regularly, the employees know their roles and report possible issues, internal checks are constantly verified and good.

 

But having to put all of that into a plan which then is constantly revisited monthly, where you can't just verify as a checklist (because it causes lax enforcement), where you're constantly having to strain to improve and implement new ideas that aren't necessarily valid for your operation, that's where I take issue with this whole Food Safety Culture issue.

 

I can tell you why my culture is strong.  My employees can tell you why they care about food safety.  But auditors want me to write something up differently for it on a monthly basis?  Nah, pointless.  Dumb.  Don't like it.

[Jimimacintire]

A couple of webinars and articles I saw say you don't measure the culture, you measure the things that reflect on a good culture.

Measurements

• Weekly and daily inspections show we are Proactive in identifying / anticipating new issues and maintaining existing efforts.
• Staff trainings outline the food safety components they are responsible for in their position. Trainings include information related to allergen controls, GMP’s, microbiological, chemical, physical, and radiological hazards, and food defense.
• Reviews of Complaint log that may show any trends indicating food safety problems.
• Staff bringing up concerns when they arise. (Ex. Finding foreign objects, ingredient issues, repairs,) shows Food Safety is on their minds.
• Staff passing pest control challenge exercises show they do the right thing when no one is looking.

What do youthink?

[GMO]

A couple of webinars and articles I saw say you don't measure the culture, you measure the things that reflect on a good culture.

Measurements

• Weekly and daily inspections show we are Proactive in identifying / anticipating new issues and maintaining existing efforts.
• Staff trainings outline the food safety components they are responsible for in their position. Trainings include information related to allergen controls, GMP’s, microbiological, chemical, physical, and radiological hazards, and food defense.
• Reviews of Complaint log that may show any trends indicating food safety problems.
• Staff bringing up concerns when they arise. (Ex. Finding foreign objects, ingredient issues, repairs,) shows Food Safety is on their minds.
• Staff passing pest control challenge exercises show they do the right thing when no one is looking.

What do youthink?

 

I think measuring what the culture results in, i.e. the outputs of it is a good approach but I'd prefer it to be combined with something which delved into the beliefs and attitudes, particularly of leadership.  You can have good results on all of the above but have a commercial team who don't give a.f. about what they sell and the food safety implications of it for example.  So it's a start but it's not the whole picture.

 

Who ran the webinar?

[GMO]

Snipped for length, but I don't think most of us would disagree with you that having tools in place for food safety are universally good.  I'm with other posters who indeed have strong food safety culture within their plants: they train regularly, the employees know their roles and report possible issues, internal checks are constantly verified and good.

 

But having to put all of that into a plan which then is constantly revisited monthly, where you can't just verify as a checklist (because it causes lax enforcement), where you're constantly having to strain to improve and implement new ideas that aren't necessarily valid for your operation, that's where I take issue with this whole Food Safety Culture issue.

 

I can tell you why my culture is strong.  My employees can tell you why they care about food safety.  But auditors want me to write something up differently for it on a monthly basis?  Nah, pointless.  Dumb.  Don't like it.

 

Think we're going to have to agree to disagree.  I have worked in huge and tiny companies and for the most part found that the smaller companies had better cultures.  Doesn't mean the culture was perfect though and we ended up with a huge food safety incident in one because of one aspect we weren't considering.  I think the objections "because my site is already good so I don't have to prove it" are applicable across any area of the standards.  Doesn't mean you wouldn't.

 

But I know your point, you've made it.