Behavioural change through on-the-job training can dramatically improve food safety compliance in a manufacturing environment by up to 26%.
Food safety compliance increased from 68% to 94% following a prescribed system of training and corrective observation.
Alchemy has a coaching system in the form of an iPad based application which can audit behaviour on the factory floor and it can tell if an employee is doing a task correctly.
If they do it incorrectly it gives them a four or five minute training on the spot and then they are measured again.
Time for food safety
Paula Morris, commercial director UK for Alchemy, said although it was a US study, UK food manufacturers could benefit from the findings.
“Despite the obvious gains associated with food safety training, previous food industry research has shown that at present many food businesses have reported dedicating just eight hours a year to vital food safety training.
“New approaches to training such as those used in this study could help to improve these figures.”
The study was developed to test whether prescribed supervisory coaching, effective training and a corrective observation could drive performance among food workers and help a company to improve its food safety compliance and productivity.
It was undertaken in the US over a 15-month period and was sponsored by Alchemy Systems.
Four US food processing facilities took part, including a soup and sauce production site, two meat processing facilities and a cheese/dairy firm.
Production specific
A specific production process was chosen at each site, for example in the soup company, the kettle operation process from ingredient staging through to final cleaning and equipment sanitation.
A standard was set against which effective performance could be measured.
The identified standard was a sequence of effective behaviours.
Supervisors then conducted corrective observations using compliance checklists and in the case of non-compliances, corrective actions were assigned.
Across all four sites, the study measured compliance levels at a pre-training baseline, post training and following each corrective observation.
When the process was limited to targeted training, compliance climbed from 68% to 82%. After three consecutive observations, the average increase in compliance rose to 94%.
Training survey
The Global Food Safety Training Survey 2013 was conducted by Campden BRI, Alchemy Systems, BRC and SQF.
Morris said: “Changing attitudes and behaviour towards food safety can have a positive impact on productivity and help enhance profitability.
“It is vital to generate a food safety culture and truly empower workers through a process of targeted training on the specific tasks within their job process, corrective observations and then corrective actions.
“Together these will help change behaviour and consequently, long term results in the business.
“The Global Food Safety Training Survey confirmed that food manufacturers reported experiencing a range of benefits including improved product quality, higher morale, increased productivity, fewer worker injuries and increased customer retention following effective training.”