Making the Italian Food & Beverage Industry a Safe Place to Be

Embed Safety into your operating systems
Even if Health & Safety is a topic on the agenda of leadership, the culture in the food and drinks sector is still primarily focused on preventing issues that could affect production, quality and food safety which are of indisputable importance to consumers. Health & Safety are considered separate and are not integrated into most operating systems. Most of the safety activities are systematically delegated to the Health & Safety function with limited or partial involvement of line management. It is critical to align and engage employees in both the safety and production functions.

Invest in Supervisors leadership skills
Supervisors in the food and drink industry are often overloaded with tasks and are struggling to drive and manage safety issues at the same time. They are also generally reluctant to intervene in correcting unsafe behaviours because they don’t know how to do it and prefer to compromise when they have to meet production targets. Skills and competencies must be developed and continuously enhanced at all levels of the organisation, especially among middle management and supervisors, through the practice of safety routines and use of tools for detecting and preventing those situations that can lead to SIFs.

Positively engage all your employees
Routine work and physical workplace challenges (e.g. noise, humidity, etc.) make complacency among the workforce in this sector an issue. In other words, repetitive tasks tend to lead to employees falling into behavioural patterns. That lowers risk awareness and has an effect on operational discipline. Employees get used to taking shortcuts if line managers fail to point them out for fear of causing conflict. Workforce concerns related to high-risk operations need to be recognised and respected through listening and working to stimulate identification of solutions, by recognising contributions, honouring and awarding ideas and suggestions. In addition, the workforce has to be constantly involved in implementing actions and the implementation of identified improvements must be followed up.