Extreme heat has become a way of life in recent summers. The past seven years have been the seven hottest years on record. Further, the number of heat waves each year have tripled since the 1960s, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Those already-high temperatures skyrocket in a busy restaurant kitchen. Hot temperatures are not only dangerous for older workers but a drain on productivity. In a recent article in The Washington Post, Chad Asplund, a sports medicine physician and the executive director for the U.S. Council for Athletes’ Health, said there are similarities between athletes and minimum-wage workers when it comes to pushing physical boundaries in the heat. “I have seen studies that demonstrate that errors for indoor workers start going up 1 percent at every degree above 77 degrees, and that once you get higher than 92 degrees, you start losing your productivity,” he said. While the restaurant industry lacks regulations when it comes to managing heat in foodservice kitchens, expect that to change as more parts of the U.S. experience unseasonably high temperatures – and think now about how you may need to adapt your business to provide relief, in the form of breaks and substitute staff. A visit from a health and safety inspector can cause anxiety in a restaurant, but it doesn’t have to. Spreading the responsibility for food safety across your team can help everyone gain the confidence they need to present your facility well. At a time when turnover remains high and resources are stretched, weaving automated learning tools into the fabric of everyday tasks can help. First identify your basic needs when it comes to training so you can gather resources that address past problems and new processes. While every employee should be given high-level training, follow-up training should be continuous and built into the flow of work, with checklists and mini lessons accessed via mobile device so they accompany the employee and be updated in real time. According to FEMA, a single inch of floodwater can cause $26,807 in damages. Beyond financial harm, floods can pose risks of mold and structural damage to your facility – not to mention risk the safety of your food. Climate instability has made many cities more vulnerable to flooding through hurricanes and rising sea levels, so it makes sense to take precautions to protect your structure and limit potential damage. A Modern Restaurant Management report advises that outdoors, operators keep gutters clean and ensure that downspouts and exterior walls direct water away from the building so it doesn’t pool and seep below the foundation. Inspect and maintain the roof and windows to prevent leaks. Finally, using water detection devices placed near sump pumps can alert you to moisture and the start of flooding before it becomes a disaster. Unionization is on the rise at restaurants right now, and recent efforts to unionize several Starbucks locations and one Chipotle location have made headlines recently. In the case of Chipotle, employees of the Augusta, Maine store said faltering food safety practices, a rise in cross-contamination and negligence about employee safety contributed to their efforts. As restaurant operators continue to feel squeezed, which naturally pushes them to make difficult compromises about staff and safety, it’s critical to continue to prioritize communication with staff. A recent Nation’s Restaurant News report, which shared the views of labor attorneys on opposite sides of the issue, indicated that employers need to demonstrate to employees that they are listening actively to their concerns in order to find solutions – not simply reacting to demands. At a time when food prices are escalating faster than they have in 40 years, it’s all the more critical to minimize food waste. That includes not just measuring ingredients precisely and using nose-to-tail approaches to food preparation, but also being able to readily monitor the freshness of food and the presence of pathogens. As your kitchen becomes more connected, ensure you have the capability to be alerted promptly to the growth of bacteria or other indicators that your food isn’t as fresh as it could be. Kitchen sensors can now help track these things, and the prompts may be opportunities to not only avoid a food-safety incident, but also to cut costs by adjusting necessary ingredient quantities and take the load off of an already-stretched team. At a time when you’re likely working with a smaller staff and/or onboarding new employees on a regular basis, it’s especially important to be able to deliver food safety training that keeps pace with a wide range of training needs. Technology is of critical help here. Are you currently able to use digital tools to provide your team with short training videos or on-demand guidance from any device – as well as track employees’ progress in meeting training objectives? Doing so is an efficient way to ensure you stay in compliance with regulations and protect food safety. Ask Team Four for help in using technology to deliver targeted training that helps protect your food safety program. If you’re hiring a lot of temporary staff over the summer months, it’s especially important to make food safety front-of-mind for them. While your ongoing training is an important piece of that, you can set your team up for success by giving them the right tools for safe food handling and storage, as well as proper equipment care. Keep sinks stocked with soap and paper towels, provide ample disposable gloves or other protective items for food handling, and post signage to remind staff of the times when washing is required and to refrain from eating, drinking or smoking around food preparation areas. Check shelving to ensure food items can be stored six inches off the floor, designate separate areas for cleaning solutions, and calibrate appliance thermometers to ensure food is being stored at the proper temperature. Make sure there is a sanitizer bucket with a submerged towel at each station, and a supply of test strips available to help staff keep equipment and preparation surfaces clean. Ongoing supply chain and labor challenges mean that many restaurants are trying to accomplish more tasks with fewer resources, but your food safety is one area where you can’t cut corners. As you try to operate in the leanest way possible, food safety tech can help you offload processes that are necessary and also require more labor hours when done manually. Looking across your operation, are there any remaining paper-and-pen processes that could be converted to digital? Are you receiving text or email alerts about the need to complete tasks on time? Can you log photos or other evidence of compliance as needed? Talk to Team Four if you need help in assessing where and how digital processes may help enhance your food safety. Difficult as the current environment is for restaurant operators, it could also be an ideal time to press the reset button on your food safety program – and to reinforce your commitment to it as you onboard new staff. If you’re like most foodservice operators right now, you’re actively trying to recruit staff – and perhaps in even greater numbers than you had to let go at the start of the pandemic. This means you’re likely in the midst of trying to ensure a new, less experienced roster of staff is up to speed about your safety protocols and the day-to-day work of your restaurant. How well you handle the onboarding process plays an important role in an employee’s experience with you: According to research from Modern Restaurant Management, management and communication are two of the factors that impact employee satisfaction the most. To ensure you’re covering the range of methods in which people learn, combine written, digital and on-the-job training tools to communicate policies clearly. For example, you might offer a handbook at the outset that includes your Covid safety protocols, an overview of how your restaurant operates, your restaurant’s values and ethos, guidelines for greeting and interacting with customers, sick leave policies, staff roles and responsibilities, and a review of your technology tools. Complement this with follow-up opportunities for Q&A, job shadowing with an experienced staff member, and digital reviews of training concepts on an ongoing basis. Expect mistakes and create an environment that makes it easy for new staff to admit to them and make adjustments. We’ve all got pandemic fatigue – and it’s especially evident in restaurants, where people are gathering again with friends, mask-free, over their favorite food and drink. But restaurants are also at an important inflection point when it comes safety, having to decide how many lockdown-inspired protocols should remain – and perhaps putting off safety improvements that aren’t immediately necessary. Many of those improvements have to do with ventilation – including system inspections and upgrades, new HVAC filters, and the use of small air filtration units throughout a restaurant that can help protect indoor air quality. A recent report in The Atlantic advises operators to take this time to make sure they are as ready as they can be to manage future variants or separate virus outbreaks (and to have a clear-eyed view about spending money on more-visible but less-effective protocols that fall into the realm of pandemic theater). What valuable safety lessons from the pandemic could you try to ensure don’t get put on the back burner as concern about the pandemic recedes? |
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