 The restaurant business can be difficult to predict: A sick employee, a piece of key equipment in disrepair, or weather conditions that result in a long line out your door can quickly turn a seemingly routine day into a unmanageable one. When this happens, it’s only natural to switch into a different gear where you’re putting out fires – taking on some extra tasks here or skipping some safety checks there just to keep up with what’s happening in the moment. But this can cause a ripple effect that’s difficult to reverse. Specifically, what happens to your procedures when conditions settle down and your operation seems to be flowing as it should? Junior members of the team who have observed the restaurant in fire-fighting mode now know there are some tasks that can be skipped if need be. So do they really need to be done as regularly as they were initially told? Being in fire-fighting mode on a regular basis can erode your management’s credibility and lead to a decline in food safety. To stop repeating the pattern, it can help to take a step back and assess how often you’re short on staff, having audits or inspections, or otherwise having to scramble to dig yourself out of challenging situations. Understand where you’re slipping so you can build a backup plan to ensure you’re still upholding your food safety procedures, identify tools or automations that might support you, and ask for help from your team and upper management.
 If your restaurant is slipping up on food safety – or simply has areas where it can perform even better – it’s possible your team may not necessarily see the connection between what they do each day and the impacts on the health and safety of your guests. This isn’t just about the people preparing your food. It’s about people at every level of your organization who play a role in delivering the best possible experience for guests – even if they don’t know it. For example, the complex tasks your kitchen has to complete tend to carry greater risk. They’re more difficult to get right. Making these tasks simpler and easier may require looking at them in a different way. Your connections and partnerships with other parts of your operation can be helpful here in making positive changes. Involving partners from the beginning and as a regular part of the job can make them more invested in food safety as foundational to the overall success of the business – not something that is layered on top as extra information that needs to be learned and applied by a select group. In a recent webinar from Food Safety Magazine, Steven Lyon, director of food safety at Chick-fil-A, shared an example of how such connections can be helpful: He said that Chick-fil-A is the world’s No. 2 buyer of lemons, after Walmart. Team members used to hand-squeeze every lemon, handling 50 cases of lemons a day – not a great experience for team members and a burden on operational storage space. But the team came up with the idea of transitioning to high-pressure-process lemon juice to ease those strains – and over the course of a multi-year period, they were able to get buy-in across the business about the value of the change. Where might your business benefit – in safety, costs savings or other areas – from gathering the input and buy-in of people across your operation?
 It may sound counterintuitive: You want to train your staff to improve in a particular aspect of food safety, so why not drill down on that problem so you can address it? According to a recent podcast interview with Tia Glave and Jill Stuber, cofounders of the consulting firm Catalyst, you get a lot farther by building interpersonal connections first. In their work with food safety leaders, Glave and Stuber recommend focusing on three P’s – who their employees are personally, who they are professionally, and what their priorities are. When your staff feels like you are invested in those dimensions of their lives, they tend to be far more open about information they are collecting on the job – details that can help you identify food safety issues and understand personality traits that may be posing problems on the team. From there, you have a better chance of identifying how best to present lessons to the team, helping them understand why they are important, and motivating them to improve.
 Your staff knows what’s happening behind the scenes of your restaurant – both the good and the bad. So if guests ask them what they think about a menu item – or if they would recommend it – and the employee hesitates to answer because they haven’t tried the food or wouldn’t eat it, guests might get a bad taste in their mouths before trying anything. So think of your staff as a pilot group of restaurant guests. If you can connect them with the food you serve, listen to their feedback and encourage them (through your safety practices) to trust the quality of your food, they can become strong front-line ambassadors of your brand.
 A sullen staff member can be more than just an annoyance for a restaurant operator or guest. If the person isn’t simply having a bad day but doesn’t care about providing quality service, it’s a red flag for food safety risks. Angela Anandappa, the founding executive director of the nonprofit Alliance for Advanced Sanitation, said in an interview with Mashed that low morale at restaurants can signal inadequate training, poor management, high stress and staff turnover, understaffing, concerns about pay, and personality clashes. None of these problems inspire guests to trust you to prepare the foods they are about to eat. That’s why it’s important to regularly assess your working environment and observe staff in action to understand where morale issues may be lurking. An employee may need support, or perhaps a more pervasive workplace issue needs changing.
 It’s likely to be another summer of extreme heat. That can make your restaurant a less comfortable place to work, which impacts employee safety as well as your guests’ experience. Consider adapting your staff uniforms to accommodate high temperatures, avoiding outdoor service during the hottest parts of the day, promoting menu items that generate less heat during preparation, keeping outdoor service areas as cool as possible with fans and shades, and ensuring staff are getting ample breaks for water and rest. Also, since now is not the time for your HVAC system to let you down, make sure its service record is up to date and you’re able to keep your kitchen and indoor seating areas well-ventilated and cool.
 You’re hardly alone if you’re short on staff right now – a majority of restaurants are. But you don’t want to plant the seed with health inspectors that you are taking shortcuts with safety as a result. Does your restaurant show signs that it’s operating with a skeleton crew? That could include long waiting times before being greeted or served, as well as an abundance of tables waiting to be cleaned. If so, it may be time to review any time-wasting tasks throughout your operation. What items can be delegated to others or automated with the help of technology? What tasks are non-urgent and can be set aside so you can protect safety? Taking care of those items may help you ensure a guest returns – and assure an inspector that you’re not slipping up on safety.
 Restaurants have become increasingly adept at doing more with less in the past few years, but if you’re still trying to work at full capacity with a skeleton crew, you’re likely increasing your risk of foodborne illness. Condensing your menu, as well as decreasing your hours and available tables, can help you make sure you’re not letting critical food safety tasks slip through the cracks. Beyond that, if your operation looks a lot different than it did a few years ago, consider working with a food safety expert who can evaluate your current processes and suggest approaches that can help you save time and increase efficiency without compromising food safety.
 Your food safety record is in the hands of your staff – and any employee retention problems you’re experiencing can chip away at your restaurant’s institutional knowledge. What’s more, poor retention creates a greater likelihood that risks will be overlooked and cause problems. Taking some simple steps to retain staff can have a positive knock-on effect on your safety. Help your team avoid burnout this winter: Using scheduling software that allows staff to select and swap their shifts can help, as well as having (and communicating) a clear policy ensuring that everyone is healthy when they come to work. Finally, know what boundaries you’re unwilling to cross to accommodate a demanding guest – standing up for a employee can go far in protecting morale and retaining your overall team.
 Chances are you have people from a range of generations on your team – and the mix is always shifting. That has an impact on how your food safety training is received and how it must be delivered as a result. According to operators at the 16th annual Nation’s Restaurant News Food Safety Symposium, multigenerational teams often need varying instruction. For example, the fast-casual brand Noodles & Company employs workers across four generations – and the restaurant’s director of food safety and quality assurance says the brand’s younger workers respond best to 30-second instructional videos, while their older team members tend to respond best to written cards. If you’re getting mixed food safety results in your restaurant, it may be worthwhile to take a closer look at your training and seeking feedback from staff about how they learn best – whether due to generational differences or simply preferences. You want to make sure your most important lessons are being delivered in ways that are most likely to be absorbed.
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