Culture in Hygiene: Hygiene Team Retention & Engagement (Webinar 1)

Culture in food safety is one of the most crucial aspects to guaranteeing unwavering compliance. In fact, a lacklustre food safety culture plan was identified as one of the eight most common non-conformities by the BRCGS in their recently updated issue of the Global Standards of Food Safety.

For that reason, our team at Klipspringer decided it was time to address Culture in Hygiene across a three-part webinar series.

Hosted by Alex Carlyon, a Director at Klipspringer with over 18 years of industry experience, the first part of this series focuses on how to engage with and retain an efficient, high-functioning hygiene team. Today, Alex is joined by Phil May, Technical Support & Hygiene Manager at leading manufacturers Greencore, and Lars Turner, Food Industry Specialist at cleaning solution providers FoodClean.

Interested in a specific part of this webinar?

Browse the below menu to skip ahead to the section most relevant to your food safety needs:

1) Protecting Your Team

2) Equipment Choice

3) Induction and Training

4) Sustaining Good Practice

5) Ongoing Process Refinement

Click below if you’d prefer to watch the full webinar.

Amid staff shortages and a smaller pool of skilled workers, ensuring that team members are safe at work is an absolute MINIMUM requirement for maintaining an effective and loyal team.

In this section of the webinar, Lars and Phil provide several tangible examples to demonstrate the value of an operator-first approach. They discuss how labour retention is always higher among a well-protected and engaged team – and the positive economic and environmental impact this can have for food businesses.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of workers suffer from equipment-inflicted injuries. Equipment construction and maintenance was the third most common category of non-conformance identified by the BRCGS in their abovementioned Issue 9. 

As explained by Phil and Lars, reduction in injury is just one facet to improving culture in hygiene. Watch below as they dissect the higher motivation and increased lifespan of equipment resulting from an ‘operator-owned’ model of workplace production.

Thirdly, Alex and Phil delve into the importance of the initial onboarding process in developing an outstanding hygiene culture.

Alex addresses the issue of high staff turnover – a common problem with many workers currently coming through recruitment agencies. Recognising that training is an ongoing process and making Critical Control Points (CCPs) highly visual is also suggested.

Creating and implementing these processes is all well and good, but their long-term impact will be limited if they are not sustained. Drawing on several visual examples, Alex illustrates how to prolong and consolidate hygiene processes through adaptability.

Lastly, Lars and Phil return to offer valuable insights about ongoing process refinement.

Contrary to popular belief, they recommend a culture which encourages workers to challenge the status quo, as the most powerful improvements often come from unexpected sources. Root Cause Analysis, cross-functional teams, and the 5-Whys are also mentioned.