by How to begin:
- Start by hiring smarter … Hire managers with leadership skills to help employees reach and sustain their professional handwashing standards. Don’t hire employees with nervous habits of unconscious twitches and touches of their face or hair. Hire people with cleanable hands.
- Convey your business and customer service philosophies clearly … Define hand hygiene success for them. Explain the why, using graphics to bring germs into the visible realm of reality.
- Set high performance standards … “When high performance becomes a team commitment, team members will expect it from each other and support each other in achieving it.” Set a quality standard for handwashing using ProGrade, illustrating how handwashing is a skill. Give them a frequency of three handwashes per hour as a minimum, based on the menu, people served and the company’s risk tolerance. This number is based on the job and its task changes. Adjust the number or reconfirm after the first week.
Outline their role in keeping high-touch surfaces clean. Share standards and how they are measured.
- Pay a competitive wage with competitive benefits … for a job well done. Point out that non-compliance in hand hygiene behaviors results in disciplinary action as it risks customer and colleague health as well as the health of the business.
- Treat your staff with dignity and respect … and make it easy for them to do the right thing. Facilitate their success by providing quality products and reliable equipment in proven protocols. Verify that your definition of success is attainable.
- Show them you value their contributions to the restaurant’s success … starting with the leadership you expect from your managers in motivating the staff that are accountable for professional-quality handwashing, protecting their colleagues and customers from foodborne illnesses.
- Ask their opinions and ask them for customer feedback. “They see what works and what doesn’t, so ask them on a regular basis …” about any hand and high-touch surface cleanliness issue. Then “reward the suggestions that work.”
- Engage the team and develop their skills … Use handwashing to build teamwork. Create a Handwasher of the Month award. Celebrate records for days without a related complaint.
- Recognize them for a job well done … Here is the true value in having clear standards for hand and high-touch surface cleanliness. Compliance results in full paychecks and consideration for pay raises.
These nine bolded points and quotes were originally presented by David Peasall as a means to reduce employee turnover in restaurants, David is a human resources director at FrankCrum, a national professional employer organization that provides outsourced human resource services to restaurants and other small to midsized businesses. For more information:
