Communication and Food Safety free essay sample

To summarize the article given, it is the problem on the communication barriers at the workplace. One of the problems is supervisor giving out inconsistent messages which causes miscommunication. As stated, several factors are the cause of communication barriers as such different cultural or ethnic background and wide range age group of employees working. To have a deeper understanding on the problem faced, Barry, who is ServeSafe certified is taken as an example to link to the problem. The owner of the restaurant is aware of the food safety issue hence they are supportive toward Barry in his food safety efforts but because of high turnover of employees, eventually food training safety is omitted. It seems like the food safety issue is getting serious when one day Barry stepped into the kitchen and noticed several trays of uncooked meat sitting out in the kitchen area. After all these incidents, he has taken many effort to get employees to be safe in how the handle food. We will write a custom essay sample on Communication and Food Safety or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page 1. What are the communication challenges and barriers Barry faces? Introduction: Communication is a process of exchange and flow of information, thoughts and feelings between people through verbal communication, non-verbal communication and written communication. The message is sent by a sender through a communication channel to a receiver. The sender must encode the message into a form that is appropriate to the communication channel. The receiver will then decode the message to understand its meaning and significance. However, misunderstanding can occur at any stage of the communication process. As shown in the case study, Barry who is a foodservice manager at a casual dining restaurant faces communication challenges and barriers in managing all employees in the back of the house. Content: One of the communication challenges and barriers Barry faces is generational barriers. This can be clearly seen in the case study that the employees working in the back of the house range in age from 16 years old to 55 years old. Having employees in various age categories interacting at the workplace can pose a unique set of challenges. This is because every generation has its own style of communication. For example, the younger generation may use shortened messaging in placing the customers’ orders and their vocabulary may not be consistent with that of the older employees. Besides, difference in work values and attitude may also affect communication between the younger and older employees. Hence, this will make it difficult for the employees to interact with each other. In addition, Barry faces cultural and ethnic barriers in the communication process. This is due to the diversity of cultural and ethnic backgrounds which the employees come from. It may be a challenge for Barry to overcome the cultural differences in food safety practices. For example, several trays of uncooked meat are placed at room temperature for quite some time in the kitchen area. This shows that different cultures have different food safety practices. Moving on, language is also one of the main barriers faces by Barry. Many of the employees do not speak English as their primary language and thus making the verbal communication a challenge at times. For example, if the sender and the receiver cannot understand the languages of each other, the communication will not give the intended effect. Not only that, the use of dialect and inappropriate words can cause confusions and misunderstanding during the communication process. These might cause the services of the restaurant to be delayed. Furthermore, emotional barriers will interfere with the effective communication. Emotional can be tough to overcome but it is important to put aside to engage in conversations. The relationship between the sender and receiver might adversely affect the message. For example, Barry was frustrated when he saw several trays of uncooked meat sitting at room temperature for quite some time. This may be due to Barry coming into work after a rough start at home and hence he couldn’t control his emotion. Last but not least, non-verbal communication is also one of the challenges. This can be clearly seen in the physical appearance of Barry. For example, Barry was lucky to rummage through some of the dirty laundry and find a relatively clean outfit to wear for work. Besides that, he did not get a haircut and a good hand scrubbing after working on his car last evening. It is part of his body language showing his employees that he does not care about personal appearance and cleanliness. Conclusion: In conclusion, communication is not a one-way street. In order to avoid from barriers in communication process, consistent messages play an important role in the process. Hence, supervisor must ensure that every message that is brought out must be consistent to all of the employees. With the aid of consistent messages, barriers in communication process can be minimized. 2. What solutions might Barry consider in addressing each of these challenges and barriers? Introduction: Communication is the process of convey and exchange information to understand the meaning between sender and receiver. In every communications, there will have some misunderstanding occurred in the process of communication. There are some barriers and challenges that Barry faces in the communication such as generational barriers, cultural and ethnic barriers, language barriers, emotional barriers and non verbal challenges. Barry might consider the following solutions to identify the barriers and challenges that his faces in the communication. Content: First and foremost, the solution that Barry addressing in the generational barriers is categorizing the workers into groups which based on the age of workers and worker’s preferences or willingness of ways of communication. In the management of the restaurant, there are four generation in the workforce and each of the group has different preferred way of communication, different work value and attitude. Receiving text messages is the preferred way of communication for younger generation workers while the older workers found out this way of communication unacceptable. Besides, the solution in addressing the cultural and ethnic barriers is to identify cultural beliefs and to understand the ethnic related to food safety. The cultures provide the people with the way of seeing things, way of thinking and way of interpreting. So that, the same words could be having different meaning to people from different countries and this might leads to misunderstanding in the process of communication. For example, workers come from the other country have made comments that food can be at room temperature for hours and nothing ever happened and controlling temperature is not so important. In addition, the solution of language barriers is posting signs in workers’ primary language which is not only words but putting marker with visuals. To show the interest to the workers Barry might also learn some simple words in the workers’ primary language. Furthermore, the solution of emotional barriers that Barry faces is Barry must get to control his emotions well before starting to work. This barrier is basically characterized by suspicion, mistrust and fear. Besides, this barrier makes the message doubtful to understand and get confuse to interpret the meaning. When emotionally blocked, meaning of the message that received can not be interpreted specifically. Barry should have to self-awareness and seeking outside assistance to help him to cope with the personal problems. Last but not least, the solution towards non-verbal communication is Barry should check over his appearance which his appearance is important as a role-model to the workers. Appearance is a nonverbal cue to workers. Other than that, his actions and behaviours should be consistent with what he is expecting from workers. For example, because he is expecting workers to follow proper hand washing steps, he should also use the proper hand washing steps. Conclusion: In conclusion, Barry should overcome those barriers and challenges that he faces in the communication with addressing the above solutions. Sender and receiver must follow the steps of communication and avoid those barriers such as language barriers, generational barriers, cultural and ethnic barriers, non-verbal challenges and emotional barriers to have a better understanding and minimize the misunderstanding in the communication. . What Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) would be helpful for Barry to implement and enforce? Introduction: The Business Dictionary states that a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) must be a written document that can be used as guidance any time a specific task or project is undertaken. In other word, SOP is explaining how policy is implemented to the work place. SOP may be written as a policy or it may also writ e as document. An effective SOP can be communicate with who perform the ask, what the materials are needed to complete the task, where is the task should take place, when should the task be perform and how the person can enforce the task. In this case study, SOP can identify who, what, where, when and how of food service practices for employees. There are five elements that should include in SOP, which are rationale of SOP, detailed description of procedure, monitoring actions, accountability, corrective actions and revision date. Content: Barry as the food service manager, he must be make sure that SOP is implemented, communicating with employees and ensure that employees are following the SOP. According to the case study, there are two helpful SOPs would be used by Barry, which are New Employee Orientation SOP and Employee Health and Personal Hygiene SOP. Barry found that orienting employees are challenging due to the high turnover of employees and time constraints of busy day. He should implement New Employee Orientation, because it could be helpful in the long run however it may take time at the beginning. In this SOP, employees will have a training base on the basic food safety procedures before or during the first day of work. The food safety procedures for employees are: 1. Employees need to meet with restaurant manager to receive basic food safety procedures training as it is necessary. 2. Employees need to review food safety checklist with manager. 3. Employees ask manager question if not clear and not understand about the policy. 4. Employees have to read, sign and date the statement at the end of the checklist, this ensures that employees are understood and agree with the statement of the procedures. 5. Employees later will receive a signed copy of the document. However, the restaurant manager (Barry) will: 1. Prepare an at least 30 minutes orientation session for new employees. 2. Inform new employees the purpose and the time of the orientation session. 3. Explain the purpose of the checklist to new employees. The checklist should be refers to the department Standard Operating Procedures Manual. 4. Discuss each of the policy and procedure on the checklist. 5. After reviewing the procedures, Barry should request employees to read, sign and date the statement at the end of the form, Barry should also sign and date the form. Make sure that employees are understood and agree with statement of the procedures. . Provide a copy of the statement to each of the new employees. Inform them that the copy will keep in their personnel file and if human resource department require the copy, they should provide it. 7. Remind where is the location of a copy of the department Standard Operating Procedures Manual. This manual can be use when questions occur. 8. Thank new employees for participating and last ly emphasize the important of the food safety are involving every staff. Personal hygiene is very important to a restaurant. Barry as the manager of the restaurant, he must be the role model to all the employees. However, he does not do so, he showed his unclean hand, dirty and grease uncut hair, wrinkled clothing and inability when kitchen occur unexpected incident. This tells employee that appearance and personal hygiene standards are not important. Therefore, an effective Employee Health and Personal Hygiene SOP should be adopted and implemented. As a high quality and high reputation restaurant, Barry must ensure that his employees will maintain a high quality of personal hygiene practice to assure food safety. There are few procedures for employee to follow, which are: 1. Grooming i. Employees must free form attracted by disease when handling food, which mean employee must arrive at work place with clean. It is include all the body part such as clean hair, teeth brush, clean face, shower with deodorant if it is necessary and others. ii. Finger nail must short and clean, for female worker, there are no artificial nails and art nails are allowed. iii. Wash hands including under finger nail and up to forearms vigorously with soup and warm water for around 20 seconds. iv. Employee must wash hands when: * Enter and exit from facility. * Before preparing food and handling equipment. After and before using toilet. * When switching between working with raw foods and working cooked foods. * After touching any body part including coughing and sneezing. * After cleaning duties and cleaning table. * Before wearing disposable gloves. * After eating and drinking. * After smoking at the smoking zone. * Any other tasks that will be use hands to do. v. Can only wash hand at the w ashbasins that only designed for employees use. vi. Dry hands only use a single towel. vii. Turn off faucets by using paper towel to prevent recontamination of clean hands. 2. Proper costume Employees must wear appropriate clothing and have a good appearance, uniform must be clean and must wear close-toed work shoes, because it is comfortable for them to stand and work on the slippery floor. Employee must also take out apron when rest time and change it when stained. Not only that, when serving food or preparing raw food, employee must also wear glove. They must wear disposable glove when there is any cuts, sores, rashes or lesions. Disposable glove must change after washing hands. 3. Hair Employees must wear hair net or cap in the kitchen, make sure that all hair are covered. This is to prevent hair will not falling into food. Beards must be keeping in neat. 4. Jewellry Only plain wedding bands, engagement rings, or wrist watches are permitted to wear when duty. Jewelry allows food particles and dirt to accumulate and may interference proper hand washing. 5. Illness Employees may require providing a health card. Employee who is diagnosed with an infection from Norovirus, Hepatitis A, Salmonella Typhi, Shigella, or Shiga Toxin-producing Escherichia Coli must be excluding from working in restaurant. Employee must report to manager (Barry) if they diagnosed any flu. . Cuts, Abrasions, and Burns Employees must report to manager (Barry) if they was cut, abraded and burned. The wound must be dressing properly. 7. Smoking, eating and chewing gum Employees cannot smoke in every part of restaurant, only designated area is allowed smoking. Eat and drink in designated area. There is not any chewing gum allowed during working hour. However the restaurant manager (Bar ry) should develop various procedures that are suitable for the restaurant. He should meet all the staffs and review the procedures at least once of the year. Not only that, he need to ensure that all the staffs are following the procedures. He could provide a specific directions regarding food safety handing for emergency situation. Lastly, he needs to evaluate and update procedures as necessary. Conclusion: In conclusion, Barry as the manager of the restaurant, he should ensure that food is safe, clean, and delicious when deliver to customer. Therefore, he must all the employees can provide food which is meet the standard and quality. Through the using of SOPs, employees have a policy to follow instead of working with no role. By implementing and enforce the two SOP, food quality and the reputation of the restaurant can achieve a significant rise. Reference 1. Book * Schermerhorn Jr John R. , Paul D, David P, Alan S, Peter W amp; So Ling C (2011). Management, Fifth Edition. The Communication Process (page 457). 2. Internet * Food Safety Project, IOWA UNIVERSITY (year unknown). Employee Health and Personal Hygiene. Docstoc. com. Retrieved from: http://www. docstoc. com/docs/116287536/Employee-Health-and-Personal-Hygiene * Integrated Publishing (year unknown). Health and Personal Hygiene of Food Service Employees. Retrieved from: http://armymedical. tpub. com/MD0181/MD01810061. htm * ehow. com (2012). Standard Operation Procedures Definition: Identification, definition. Retrieved from: http://www. ehow. com/about_5522108_standard-operation-procedures-definition. html * Christopher Smith (2010). The Seven Barriers of Communication. CSEDEV. Retrieved from:Â  http://www. csedev. com/the-seven-barriers-of-communication/ Skills You Need (2011). What is Communication?. Skillsyouneed. co. uk. Retrieved from: http://www. skillsyouneed. co. uk/IPS/What_is_Communication. html [Accessed: