If your business is struggling with hiring and retaining staff, it may also be struggling to carry out food safety training – or to review any processes that don’t directly support your compliance with local and state regulations. But unfortunately, a restaurant may suffer for this in the long term if employees are injured on the job or if the business faces a steep insurance claim that could have been prevented by having a strong safety culture. Your restaurant’s commitment to safety should be so woven through its fabric that senior leaders talk about it regularly and every new hire is aware of your approach before they even start their job. To make it easier to share safety knowledge and encourage retention, automate what you can – through the use of video training, gamification and digital tools that guide staff through preparation tasks that protect safety. Then take steps to broaden the knowledge of your team through regular cross-training to help fill gaps. Give your more senior staff mentoring roles with newer staff. Above all, explain the why behind why you perform certain safety practices so that tasks are less likely to fall through the cracks as you manage the other demands of your business. If your kitchen staff is smaller than it once was – or it lacks the culinary skill to prepare your menu items from scratch – you’re likely weaving more prepared foods into your inventory right now. But beyond saving labor hours, these ingredients are likely to deliver food safety benefits too. Pre-cooked ingredients – like cooked, smoked beef that simply needs reheating, for example – can help a young team sidestep concerns about the safe preparation of a protein. Other speed-scratch items can help you prevent cuts and burns. There is a wide and growing array of these ingredients available at various stages of preparation, whether you need items pre-cut, pre-marinated, or pre-cooked. As Stacey Kincaid, vice president of product development and innovation for US Foods, told Restaurant Business recently, “Labor-saving products are in high demand, as are versatile products that can be used across the menu. So, once you train a team member on one product or ingredient, you don’t have to retrain.” That means you’re able to redistribute your training hours in new ways – like by cross-training people on a range of tasks that will support your team during a shift when you’re often shorthanded, training a new employee who needs one-on-one support, or providing in-depth safety training to the team. Meet your need for clean, plentiful ice The warmer months are coming – and as various regions of the country experience sweltering temperatures more often, guests will be craving icy beverages and cold foods from your business. You will need a reliable supply of ice to ensure you can meet the demands of warm weather. Now is a good time to make sure you’re ready to do so safely. First, assess how well your ice machine will be able to handle your anticipated needs for ice in the months ahead. What does your historical guest data (as well as any predictive data you can access) tell you about your likely needs for chilled beverages and food? If you have an older ice machine, how can you accommodate any of its limitations through pre-emptive service or revised workflows during a shift? While bacteria and mold can grow in an ice machine regardless of the temperature outside, heavier use of these machines in warm weather requires more frequent cleaning and sanitization – something that may not be happening as often as it should. Your employee training procedures can ensure this task stays on track, while also helping your staff use your ice machine in ways that limit the risk of cross-contamination. How tech can take safety, quality and compliance concerns off your plate If you’re managing a continuous cycle of having to do more with less – like juggling more work across a smaller crew, for example, or having to conduct more onboarding training with fewer longtime staff on your roster – it can be easy for your food safety and quality to slip through the cracks. Fortunately, tech tools can help you ensure you’re upholding key standards regardless of what’s happening and which employees are staffed during a shift. As Restaurant Technology News reported recently, tech-driven support can include everything from prompts to wash hands during busy periods to reminders about completing compliance tasks across multiple locations. Looking at your operation, where are manual processes still in use? Where do you see your standards slipping – or see potential for that to happen? Looking externally, do all of your suppliers share your commitment to safety and have mechanisms in place to protect it, or is there room to make changes for the better? When automated tools are in place, you’re able to manage business more effectively with fewer people and you also stand to make your employees’ jobs a little easier, which can help with morale and retention. When the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) led a study investigating the various factors that contribute to the cross-contamination of food in restaurants, they found more frequent cases of contamination in businesses that were lacking food safety training and certification, as well as those without handwashing policies. Contamination risks were present in restaurants that didn’t require manager certification or train workers in food safety, for example. As for handwashing, the risk for contamination was greatest in restaurants that didn’t have policies detailing where, when and how often to wash hands, or on the need to minimize bare-hand contact with ready-to-eat foods. Unfortunately, 60 percent of the foodborne illness outbreaks reported to the CDC each year connect back to restaurants, so it’s worth zeroing in on these areas if improving food safety is on your list of priorities this year. Having a staff discussion about handwashing is something a restaurant manager can do right away to help lower a restaurant’s risks – particularly at a time when seasonal viruses are common. |
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