More than half of food and beverage manufacturing companies still use paper-based methods to document and manage employee training records, and less than a third of employees believe that their workplace is going “above and beyond” to reinforce food safety training, according to the findings of a new food industry survey.
In the 9th annual Global Food Safety Training Survey, 51.5% of respondents said their facility uses paper-based documentation, 27% stated that Excel spreadsheets are used, and only 17.3% noted the use of a Learning Management System (LMS).
In addition to gaps in the implementation of sophisticated training technology and recordkeeping tools, the survey found that the majority of frontline workers spend less than 16 hours per year on additional training - and only 12.7% said they performed more than 32 hours of supplemental annual training.
The survey was compiled by Campden BRI Culture Excellence Lead Bertrand Emond in collaboration with BRCGS, IFS, Kiwa, NSF, Registrar Corp, SGS, SQF, and TSI.
The survey examined a long list of topics, including how training is budgeted, how it is delivered and reinforced, how sites document and manage training records, the impact of training, the role of supervisors, and the use of advanced training technologies, among others.
The survey also highlighted the 5 biggest training challenges cited by respondents:
The survey polled food industry professionals from 3,000 sites worldwide, with 75% of the respondents coming from the food and beverage manufacturing industry.
The most common job roles among the respondents were in quality assurance and food safety, followed by environmental health and workplace safety. Nearly half (45.4%) of the respondents listed their job level as “manager,” followed by senior manager/director (19.9%), administrator/coordinator (16.4%), supervisor (14.5%), and executive level (3.8%).
Almost half (47.4%) of the respondents were located in Europe (non-UK), while 15.7% were in the United States.
Almost a third (29.4%) of respondents worked at companies or facilities with 26-100 full-time employees, 20.1% had 101-250 employees, 18.6% had 1-25 staff members, and 11.8% had 251-500. Only 20% had 500 or more staff members.
Of the respondents, 18% stated that their company has zero full-time employees dedicated specifically to employee training, while 21.9% said they have 5 or more. More than 75% said they have a formal competency framework for defining knowledge, skills, and behaviors for each job role, and 76.8% said their workplace includes cross-functional team members to ensure training meets the needs of the organization.
How is Training Delivered?
Among frontline employees, 70% said that they received training by way of on-the-job supervisor coaching, while just over 60% said that instructor-led classroom training was used. Less than 20% said that their workplace used classroom training with clickers or remotes, while eLearning courses were used by more than 30% of frontline workers.
How is Training Reinforced?
The methods used to reinforce training varied widely, but in-person, on-the-job instruction was a very common response.
Among all respondents, 72.8% mentioned team meetings for reinforcement, 58.6% cited coaching from team leaders on the floor, and 61.7% said that visual aids at the site of work were used. Company-wide communications like emails and newsletters were mentioned by 51.3% of respondents.
Across all four job sectors - temporary/seasonal, frontline, supervisor, and manager, more than 55% said that training reinforcement is “sufficient" - gets the job done.” Across the four sectors only 10% to 27.7% stated that the team is going above and beyond to reinforce training. Temporary/seasonal workers scored the lowest, with 28.2% saying that reinforcement is “poor - we could do better,” and just 10.4% noting that the workplace exceeds the minimum.
In addition, 75.6% of respondents said that they “always” or “often” use examples from their own production facilities (such as photos or videos) in their training materials, indicating how many companies understand the importance of customized training that reflects the realities of the workplace.
Onboarding is a constant challenge in the food industry training. According to the survey, 34% of frontline workers said they receive 8 or fewer hours of training, while 26.3% said that 8-12 hours is the norm. More than 32 hours were required, according to 14% of respondents.
Increased awareness of food safety culture
The authors of the report noted one very positive note: almost 95% of respondents stated that they understand what it takes to build and sustain a strong food safety culture.
In another positive note, a majority of all respondents rated the quality of their overall training program as at least "sufficient - it gets the job done.” At the same time, a clear difference in perception was shown between supervisors and frontline and temporary workers. Among supervisors, 24% said their company goes above and beyond for training, as did 26% of managers. This is in sharp contrast to temporary/seasonal workers (10.2%) and frontline workers (19.9%).
The results of the Global Food Safety Survey closely resemble a survey carried out by Rootwurks in 2005 and published in March.
The survey polled more than 700 food industry professionals - from the senior leadership level to the frontlines - to hear from them about the biggest training challenges they face.
The top 5 most commonly-mentioned challenges were lack of time (14.83%), a specific training topic (13.01%), food safety culture (8.53%), employee engagement (7.41%), and training comprehension (5.03%).
Like the Global Food Safety Survey, the Rootwurks survey paints a clear picture of what makes food safety training so challenging, and why it's so important that teams deploy custom training courseware and utilize technology-advanced platforms like the Rootwurks LMS.
To read more about the results of our survey, download the free guide here.