Unify Employee Education to Meet Upgraded Global Food Safety Initiative Standards

The persistence of work issues involving temporary employees, along with troubling rates of fundamental good manufacturing practice non-compliances, should be viewed for what they are—symptoms of training-related issues and broad indicators that a plant has a less-than-acceptable food safety culture. It’s an intolerable situation that has to be rectified, starting with a thorough analysis of the training program.

Effective Analysis

Root cause analysis of plant-wide operations is not just an option. It’s a requirement set by such GFSI benchmarked schemes as SQF and BRC. RCA is a top-to-bottom examination of every causal element behind a potentially dangerous outcome such as food contamination. Every aspect of every operation has to be examined, and that includes training.

The analysis can look at different training parameters in each department and determine whether they are inconsistent with the plant or with different sites within the company. A signed document showing that training has been conducted is insufficient in and of itself, unless there is further proof of learning and comprehension. A successful food safety culture in general, and scheme certification and compliance in particular, demand irrefutable proof of training consistency, comprehension, and application. The increased scrutiny of documentation and the rest of the training process has triggered many quality assurance and human resource directors to seek tools to meet these growing demands. That is where technology comes into play.

Today’s highly sophisticated platforms have been designed to help food processing and manufacturing plants meet the new standards demanded by GFSI. One of the most important offerings in these platforms is unification of documentation that verifies a consistent methodology in training at every site of a company and, equally important, within each plant.

Plants cannot afford to accept outdated training programs in departments like quality assurance and human resources. Instead, current and optimized training and comprehension can be brought under the umbrella of a technological platform that is thorough, standardizes the training, and is easily accessible to management, trainers, and auditors. These systems can integrate training in previously disparate areas such as standard operating procedures, food safety, and workplace safety. Even individual employee lesson plans can be coordinated among plant departments or multisite facilities. These lesson plans are easily created and tracked with reporting tools for managers to monitor training progress, ensuring a smooth audit outcome.

One of the best examples of the value of a unified, standardized, and consistent training protocol at multisite food manufacturing facilities can be found at ConAgra Mills, which operates 23 food manufacturing locations in the United States and Puerto Rico. ConAgra Mills is BRC certified.

“All of our training is uniform across the plants, and we use business processes to train approximately 800 people,” said Brandon Headlee, ConAgra Mills’ director of quality. “We want to keep our product safe by ensuring employees are properly trained and educated in business process and food safety systems.”

Headlee said technology has played an important role in training and auditor verification. The company has used a technological platform for more than three years and has been pleased with results. Headlee said the platform “makes it simpler and easier to audit against and verify that training has been done.”

Headlee also acknowledged that auditors have commented on the quickness of the system and ease of access for documentation. Most of all, their personal interviews of employees have verified that workers understand what has been taught and what they are expected to do.

“Everybody gets the same training and it’s validated because auditors get the same answer and the right answer,” Headlee said. “There are no blank stares.”

As ConAgra’s experience demonstrates, today’s automated technology is an excellent tool for development of best practices in food safety training and comprehension. It affords independent plants the opportunity to share training programs that were limited to their sister plant operations and synergize them.