Maintaining food safety can be a complex task reliant on many different components. In large-scale hotels, it’s necessary to hold rigorous standards in various service areas such as room service, housekeeping and restaurants.
It has been proven that for food safety to be taken seriously in an establishment, it should be an organisational cultural value instead of merely a matter of compliance. Businesses, such as hotels, that deal with many staff across various departments need to ensure that food-safety communication is consistent across all levels.
Since the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) were developed in the 1960s to ensure food safety on space missions, they have been the foundation for food safety across all industries. So how can hotels improve on the HACCP to build a positive food-safety culture? According to Markus Kaliss, General Manager of Hilton Darwin, the surest way to embed a positive food-safety culture is to help employees take pride in their work. “If they’re under the impression that ‘it’s just a job,’ certain areas and processes can be neglected,” he explains. “Whereas if they can be proud of where they work, they will take ownership and show initiative.”
START AT THE TOP
To create an effective, responsive strategy that works for all facets of the hotel, it’s necessary to get senior leadership on board. Leaders can work together to create comprehensive food-safety plans that make sense for their various teams. Kallis explains that transparency is key. “Food safety and health strategies should be shared teamwide so that all staff are aware of where the business is heading in terms of targets, processes and areas of responsibility and improvement.”
EMBED TRAINING INTO THE EMPLOYEE LIFECYCLE
Kaliss points out that hospitality’s high employee turnover rates can make it a challenge to keep everyone fully trained.
“You may run a training with everybody this week for HACCP International, only, a month later, two or three people have already changed and new people have to go through the same training again,” he says. “So it’s not so much having the system in place, it’s actually maintaining it that I find more challenging.” It’s important for businesses to incorporate comprehensive training in the induction process for all staff, as well as offering regular refreshers.
ENCOURAGE OPEN COMMUNICATION
Employees need to feel safe to bring food-safety risks and incidents to their superiors. This communication helps build a collective mindset that resists a ‘blame mentality’. Instead, businesses would do well to treat every problem as an opportunity for improvement.
Vic Pahwa, General Manager of Mantra on Northbourne, offers a few tips for achieving a culture of open communication. He suggests businesses “prioritise team involvement in decision-making” and “encourage regular discussions on how to enhance food-safety procedures.” He notes that “when team members see this commitment and the need for their active involvement, they are more likely to embrace it as a core value.”
It’s this level of effective communication, operational structures and reiteration of values that sees food safety embedded as a culture within an organisation.
