the feed

Today’s manufacturing workers are diverse, spanning generations, education, and cultures. Finding universal ways to effectively train all workers is key to maintaining quality and safety on the floor.

When it comes to food manufacturing, the pet food industry isn’t always in agreement on how to properly test and inspect pet food products. While it’s true that pets aren’t people (although some might argue with that!) it’s still critical to reduce the number of pet food recalls that have been steadily rising in recent years. Setting standardized industry guidelines that improve safety in pet food manufacturing can do much to reduce pet illnesses and fatalities due to foodborne illness.  

Imagine this: your best frontline worker is promoted to floor supervisor. Yet, after weeks on the new job, juggling unfamiliar tasks such as managing former peers and dealing with compliance paperwork, they become overwhelmed. When frustration rises, they throw in the towel, leaving management scrambling to find a replacement. But what happens when the new supervisor is also underprepared? 

Did you know new employees who have a good onboarding experience are 69% more likely to stay with the company? In fact, according to some research, up to 20% of employees will bail within the first 45 days if they don’t feel welcome and prepared.

At Clemens Food Group, a family-owned company that provides quality pork products for retail, foodservice, and manufacturing customers, we employ about 3,000 workers throughout the United States. Part of our training program focuses on a strong onboarding program because we believe solid orientation training sets employees up for success. 

In the past, employee training mostly took place during onboarding. New hires got showered with information they were expected to retain well enough to apply correctly on the floor. Not surprisingly, this “spray and pray” method has proven less effective with time, as today’s learners experience the world visually and digitally, with one topic rapidly moving to the next.

The key to high production and efficiency is automation. But did you know automation can also be used to optimize training in manufacturing? Many companies have seen success automating their training programs, but that doesn’t mean “set it and forget it.” Rather, using automation for training can enable continuous learning, where important safety and knowledge concepts get reinforced every shift, every day, to every worker, for a greater impact.

Workplace safety incidents cost American companies billions each year. Are you confident your employees have the knowledge and confidence required to prevent workplace injuries 100% of the time? If not, what are some effective ways to bolster their strength?

Studies show that while knowledge is important, confidence is also necessary to taking correct action. While knowledge depends on training, confidence depends on repetition and reinforcement. The more your workers know and understand workplace safety, the more likely they are to follow it.

Food safety training has made great strides in the last several years, especially in onboarding, as more companies recognize the role strong employee engagement plays in successful training programs. Yet, a big opportunity still exists to increase engagement and ensure initial training is applied long after onboarding is finished: refresher trainings. These reinforcements can be delivered in several ways, and should be designed to maximize effectiveness and minimize time off the floor. 

Imagine three frontline workers: Jack, Mary, and Joe. It’s Jack's first week on the job. He goes through a day of intense onboarding training that includes everything from bathroom locations, to HR policies, to safety training. He is overwhelmed and really doesn't have all the knowledge or confidence he needs, and so he is uninformed. If a food safety decision comes up, he doesn’t know the right decision. He needs more training, experience and coaching to become a food safety expert for his job responsibilities.

What do people mean by “clean label?” The industry refers to "clean label," but the reality is consumers don't often use that term. What consumers are looking for in food products is transparency, and that includes simple ingredient lists with recognizable ingredients. After all, how many of you have heard this advice in health magazines and lifestyle blogs: "Don't eat it if it has something in it that you can't pronounce."

An effective food industry training program is the cornerstone of a high performing food production or manufacturing facility. Providing the basic knowledge and reinforcing concepts for frontline workers are just two critically important facets of a well-thought-out training system. Here are ten ideas to round out an integrated training program and fully engage your workforce:

Research suggests that the average human attention span has shrunk to an astonishing 8.3 seconds, and people forget 90% of new information within one week. Perhaps not surprisingly, 62% of food industry employees aren’t adhering to their food or workplace safety programs on the floor, which raises a big red flag because it increases the likelihood of safety incidents occurring.

So how can we overcome this tendency to forget and boost employee knowledge retention to support correct and safe behaviors on the floor?

More and more food companies are making their training and learning systems a priority these days, and rightly so. After all, your frontline food workers are your biggest asset for keeping people and products safe. But are you evaluating your training to assess its true effectiveness? How do you know your training efforts and costs are paying off?

Alignment of the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO) with the Preventive Controls for Human Food rule (PCHF) under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) sounds like a giant bowl of alphabet soup once you get all the letters into the mix. The upshot of all these acronyms coming together is an awesome opportunity for dairy food safety professionals to roll up their sleeves and turn their programs from plain old soup to the cream of the crop.