One of the many problems we run into when addressing issues with our customers sanitation programs is staffing. Many companies are turning to third party staffing options and spend way too many hours trying to find new employees. Once you finally get someone hired and trained they quit. It’s exhausting and frustrating, but have you ever thought about finding the root cause of the problem? I had a boss tell me one time
"You can’t tell someone how to do their job if you haven’t done it yourself."
Quite often the crew is there after hours when management has left for the day. They are required to clean all the equipment, pass all their swabs, and do so in a short amount of time so production can start up again. Easy, right? Not always, but if something isn’t done you know who to blame, SANITATION. Maybe the reason you can’t keep a crew is because they get frustrated, they don’t understand what they are supposed to be doing and they have no one to turn to for answers. Everyone has that one piece of equipment your crew wishes they could rock, paper, scissors to get out of cleaning that night. The crew has ideas on how to make the cleaning process easier but when they get mentioned to senior management the issues get pushed to the side and forgotten about. Sound like a culture issue?
I heard a crew member one time tell me that he gained a lot of respect for the plant manager who stayed the night of their audit, suited up and started cleaning with them. He couldn’t believe it. So the next time you show up and notice all the things that sanitation didn’t do, ask yourself, how would I like it if someone who has never done my job tried to tell me I need to do better? Stay for a shift, your crew will respect you, they will feel that their job is extremely important and take pride in what they do. Your culture will change and you will gain a new respect for what they do and maybe have some ideas on how to improve your process.
