 A food safety culture tends to generate the best engagement when business leaders are committed to it and weave it into their everyday actions and conversations. But what if your business is in the position of having to persuade senior management of the importance of investing more in its food safety culture? It takes some managing up. But if you approach leaders strategically, you can demonstrate how it’s in their best interest to support and promote food safety as a business value instead of simply a requirement. In a recent podcast for Food Safety Magazine, Nuno Soares, food safety consultant, trainer and author of the new book How to Sell Food Safety: 3-1/2 Steps to Increase Your Chances of Being Heard, spoke about how he advises food safety workers to approach business leaders. Approach it with an understanding of what motivates the leader. Will they do anything to avoid a financial loss? Are they more motivated by the promise of a better future and are willing to take risks along the way to get it? Provide some data to reinforce the potential direct and indirect consequences of doing nothing. What is the potential impact on sales, costs, penalties, employee morale and talent retention? Soares recommends starting the meeting by stating the problem you’re facing, then explaining the stakes. Follow that with a broad plan you’d like to use to generate the positive outcomes you have in mind (and how you can minimize the potential negative ones). Finally, make sure there is a clear call to action at the end – like an agreement, a next meeting on the calendar, or information about the target budget – anything to overcome the likelihood of a delay in proceeding.
 When a general manager is asked who on their team is responsible for food safety, a common answer is “everyone.” On the surface, that answer makes sense – protecting food safety should be everyone’s job. But it can end up meaning that no one is responsible, with everyone assuming someone else on the team knows the right way to clean a piece of equipment or complete any number of important food safety tasks. An FDA study found that there are more than 60 percent fewer critical issues when the person in charge could describe the operation’s food safety management system. The system should include specific procedures, training and monitoring of how staff are carrying out procedures – and for any critical procedures, the food safety management system should identify the specific people responsible, as well as where they can find additional information if they need help. Does your food safety management system have that degree of clarity? If not, your team members may be assuming that someone else has an important responsibility covered.
 Even if you have the best food safety procedures in place for your operation, some obstacles may be standing in the way of your achieving the results you want. Perhaps the problem stems from inconvenient locations for hand sinks, insufficient tools to carry out kitchen tasks, or language barriers getting in the way of clear communication. Perhaps due to the high rate of employee turnover in the industry, you’re having to move more seasoned staff to tasks like food preparation and serving while assigning new workers to cleaning and sanitation duties even if they haven’t had adequate training. According to Steritech, there is a direct correlation between manager turnover and the quality of line-worker training and the overall performance of a store. (The improvement only levels off once a manager has been on the job for 10 years.) That makes it especially important to prioritize the training and retention of new managers who can spot errors early and ensure key sanitation efforts don’t slip.
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