With the news that 5 McDonalds employees in Chicago are filing a lawsuit alleging the chain did not protect them against COVID-19, it brings into the focus the importance of training your staff and following the correct safety procedures in order to protect them.
Here is how to keep you and your staff properly trained and informed on the latest in restaurant and food safety, and to protect your restaurant from potential legal issues.
1. Train Your Staff. It’s the Law!
As a business, you have a legal requirement to train your staff.
However, training is about more than filling a legal requirement. Training protects both your workers and your customers. It gives your staff the knowledge they need to stay safe while on the job, as well as how to safely prepare food in a way that prevents customers from having a foodborne illness or allergic reaction.
With food safety and other types of training, the benefits far outweigh the costs, and restaurants who take training seriously are often the most profitable.
Find out more about Food Handler, Allergen Awareness & Food Manager Training.
2. Document It
Training your staff is one thing. Even though training is very important, it is vital that you can prove to people that training has taken place from a legal perspective.
If a health inspector walks into the building, they will want to see all training and certifications easily and not want to spend time searching for the documentation themselves.
Consider implementing an online management system to store all training details and certificates in one, easy to use area, to save you time and keep you organized.
3. Make it Part of Your Culture
Although legally your staff only need to be certified every 3 or 5 years, depending on the certification, that is nowhere near enough to run a safe, successful organization.
With COVID-19 sweeping the country, it has highlighted more than ever that continuous training is essential to keep both staff and customers safe. It’s a good idea to train staff whenever new safety information and regulations come about, such as COVID-19 restaurant safety. A great place for these sorts of updates is always the FDA website.
At Always Food Safe, we are constantly creating new content to keep you up to date with the latest trends in food safety.