Coaching Employee Behaviors

But can behavior, or anything else for that matter, be considered a leading indicator? Yes, according to a February 2014 article in EHS Today, a publication covering environmental, health, and safety issues. The article reported on a Carnegie Mellon University study determining that “75 percent in the variation in the frequency of safety incidents can be explained by the information derived from safety inspections and observations.” Author Griffin Schultz notes that based on the study, employee behavior “can provide information about both the direct and indirect causes of future safety incidents.” Schultz’s conclusion: Safety leading indicators can be determined through inspections and observations. It’s a finding that can and should be applied to observations of employee behavior in critical food safety and quality activities.

Coaching Through Technology

Management may be reluctant to get supervisors involved in coaching for several reasons. It can be time-consuming and work-intensive due to the heavy volume of record keeping that coaching necessitates. Then there is the question whether supervisors have been adequately trained to be coaches. How do they know specific questions to ask, let alone act upon? Leave it to today’s technology to provide an answer. One example is a tablet-based app developed to provide supervisors with customized templates enabling them to ask the right questions and conduct corrective observations. All the data is instantaneously entered in the employee’s file, saving supervisors considerable time and paperwork required for manual data entry.

Plants that are applying this technology have seen improvements as supervisors recognize the value of these tools. “Initially, our supervisors thought this was one more thing that would take away from their other responsibilities, but the automated tracking is making it easier and faster for them,” says Esmeralda Garcia, training supervisor for OSI Industries, a global food provider. “Also our workers understand and accept that this is a safety element, and that was a critical point that has influenced their behavior.” Garcia says the technology has made coaching much easier and less work intensive because “it is easy to identify problems, make adjustments, and see the positive results.”

Leading indicators are important because they represent meaningful barometers of each company’s current food safety compliance status. The OSI experience shows coaching can have a powerful impact on food safety and quality. Successful employee coaching as part of a well-developed behavioral change program offers tangible and intangible returns on investment— tangible in that companies will have reduced their risk exposure as well as help assure they are staying in compliance and intangible in that employees are accountable for their behaviors. Quality assurance and training officers should consider routine employee observations and coaching as a food safety leading indicator program—a vital step for keeping product, workers, and consumers safe.

Dunn Nelson is a microbiologist and vice president of technical services for Alchemy Systems, Austin, Texas. Reach her at [email protected].