We can all agree that following proper handwashing steps is the best way to prevent the spread of dangerous pathogens. Unfortunately, it’s rare that people wash their hands correctly, and making sure that they follow all of the proper handwashing steps to ensure food safety each and every time is difficult. So can you entice employees to follow all of the hand hygiene SOPs at your facility?
Policing handwashing behavior for hand hygiene compliance
One of the easiest ways to begin ensuring hand hygiene compliance among your team is to police the behavior. As employees move through the hygiene zone, an auditor should observe that employees are following proper handwashing steps.
Having someone there as a physical reminder to follow all hand washing steps is a good way to entice compliance among your team. However, this can also feel very “big brother” to some team members and may not be a scalable or effective solution if you are working with large shifts of team members moving through the hygiene zone at a given time.
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Reinforcing good handwashing behaviors for hand hygiene compliance
If you want someone to do something right, you can’t just train them once. Ongoing reinforcement and retraining is the best way to ensure that handwashing steps are done correctly each and every time.
One of the best ways to entice hand hygiene compliance is to host food safety days periodically throughout the year. These hygiene safety days are a chance to reinforce the “why” behind good handwashing behaviors and retrain your team on the proper handwashing steps.
Download our safety day guide here!
Creating a food safety culture to entice hand hygiene compliance
A food safety culture is a unified mindset across the organization that puts hand hygiene compliance at the forefront of everything done within the business, both physically and mentally. From the layout of the hygiene zone to the posters reinforcing hygiene best practices to training and retraining, everything should all support the food safety culture and entice hand hygiene compliance among your team.
While creating this culture is ideal to entice hand hygiene compliance, it is a complicated task that requires time to implement and nurture. To get started creating your food safety culture, check out our Employee Hygiene Toolbox! It has all the resources you need to begin learning about food safety culture and creating a culture that entices hand hygiene compliance across your entire team from executive leadership to production team members.
Overcome pitfalls to hand hygiene compliance with automation
The easiest and most effective ways to entice hand hygiene compliance amongst your team is to take the effort and variability of handwashing behaviors out of the equation entirely. Automated handwashing stations ensure that each team member gets a proper hand wash that removes more than 99.9% of dangerous pathogens every single time.
Find out which CleanTech Automated Handwashing Station is right for you!
