Hygiene processes are your first line of defense against contamination in your facility. In order to reach your food safety goals, the process needs to not only be effective but also practical.The process can be effective in theory but if people don’t follow the steps it’s not effective at all. Don’t let complexity be your downfall and simplify hygiene processes to improve compliance.
Your hygiene process needs to become routine for your employees. An aspect of their day that they almost don’t need to think about because it is second nature. When developing habits and routines it’s critical to remember that simplicity is your friend. A complex hygiene process is not going to foster repetition or consistency.
How to simplify
1. Have a good flow in your hygiene zone
The layout and organization of elements within a hygiene zone has a massive impact on how easy the process is to follow. Make sure to have a directional hygiene zone where the employee can move easily from one step to the next. This leaves less room for steps to be forgotten or skipped. At Meritech we have over 30 years of experience helping businesses design hygiene zones and created this ebook with tons of great info on hygiene zones.
2. Automate parts of your process
When it comes to simplicity and consistency automation is your best friend. By automating the hand and footwear hygiene in your food processing facility you can greatly reduce the amount of time and the number of steps needed for your process. Check out our CleanTech® automated handwashing stations and our boot scrubbers.
3. Reduce steps
To make things even easier for staff, try to combine steps to further simplify your employee hygiene process. In 12 seconds employees can have perfectly washed hands and footwear in a single step with our simultaneous hand and footwear hygiene.
“You stick your hands in and it does all the work for you. The easier you make it, the more fun it is, your employees are going to follow that. That’s been really great for us.”
- Ahsha Abu-Ali, Associate Director of Food Safety at HelloFresh
Creating a simple process that is easy to pick up and easy to maintain makes way for staff to develop a consistent routine with their hygiene process. These habits and routines then make way for you to reach new food safety heights. We would love to help you simplify your process while increasing efficacy and compliance. Contact us today to get started!
