SQF requirement on monthly Management meetings and how to get around this

Hello all, 

I work a very small, family owned and operated company. We have about 6 managers on the team and all of us wear multiple hats. With that being said, when we get 30 mins to sit down and talk, the topic is not just food safety. I have tried everything to keep the team on track (just focusing on food safety) but nothing works. These meetings have become redundant and useless. 

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can food as the food safety manager to keep the meeting on topic, consistent and purposeful? I would love to move to a monthly news letter but not sure how I would be able to prove that the team actually read it. 

-S. J. 

An agenda, with a slide deck to go with

doesn't need to be long, but comprehensive

Thank you! This is what we are doing currently. 3 to 4 slides max. 

I agree with agenda as a starting point, but even with an agenda you will have tangents. Almost every month I have to say 'ok, let's keep it on topic, if we need to go deeper into that than X needs to schedule a meeting to for it.' It's up to whoever chairs the meeting to keep it on track. It can be hard when your boss is the one derailing; that's when you say 'Yes that's a good point. More than I planned on discussing at this meeting. Should we circle back around to this at X?'

And if there is good forward momentum and things are getting accomplished in the meeting, you might just need to prolong the meeting..

The meetings do not need to be exclusively about food safety or quality.  You just need to document what FS&Q topics were discussed or decisions made for.

We are also a small company. The monthly meeting is the only time we all get to sit for any time and have a conversation with everyone. I have my agenda and make sure we cover what is there, but we discuss anything else that might need to be covered as well. That is the best way to make sure we are all in the know about some things!

Agreed that setting an agenda is key.  It doesn't have to be a meeting regarding only food safety, but it has to include the pertinent topics.  My first job at this corporation was to work with the multiple site QA's to compile their information into monthly reports.  My reports tracked current 3-month cycles of:

• customer and consumer complaints
• internal/external audit findings and statuses
• EMP results and sanitation inspection results
• internal holds
• a blurb about FS culture
• a blurb to cover current FDA recalls and current FDA outbreak table
• finally, any relevant news that came out in the food safety world. 

There's an attendance sheet for the plant staff to all sign that they discussed the report, places for them to make notes, etc.  It satisfies the meeting requirement across 12 SQF certified sites.  It also gets compiled into a monthly report for the corporate executives, because eventually we want to shoot for the corporate SQF certificate that would simplify the annual plant visits.

We use an agenda and colored flash cards, each manager and/or area gets a different color.

The meetings are not just centered on food safety.