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Engage kitchen staff with the WHY … without words.
The kitchen culture successfully drives handwashing compliance once it understands the WHY of frequent handwashing. Two decades ago Handwashing For Life took on the challenge to motivate food-worker handwashing. They choose to acknowledge the reality of language limitations and time. This resulted in a new standard for the industry and a model for a variety of spin-offs.
To celebrate the original video’s 20th anniversary and help fight viruses new and old, this winner is now available to all, without charge.
Many chains are regular users with Chick-fil-A leading the list. Regulators too appreciated this resource in training their operators, especially newly opened premises.
Brown-Nicollet County in south central Minnesota was founded in the spirit of “…innovation and accountability” with the rich history of its namesakes, French explorer Jean Nicollet and William Cary Brown, a decorated general, serving with Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders.
The Brown-Nicollet Environmental Health Department has followed this great tradition as a leader in protecting the public health. Their accountabilities include building strong relationships with the restaurants they serve by helping them become food safety champions. This starts with motivating and training for success.
Director Jesse Harmon was interviewed by Jim Mann, Founder of the Handwashing For Life Institute, who had been impressed by Brown-Nicollet’s new restaurant startup program, including their choice of the handwashing video component.
Jesse, how do you describe the importance of getting new restaurants to understand and implement food safety best practices from day one?
Training and modeling proper food safety practices during initial onboarding of employees is crucial to the safety and success of the business. Proper training sets up employees to succeed and allows restaurants to thrive. Handwashing is the single most important action that employees in food service can take to protect themselves and their customers.
What are your team’s greatest hurdles in getting their support?
I feel that a couple of the biggest hurdles in gaining support are turnover and time. As we know, some food service establishments see a lot of turnover in employees. This turnover leads to extra time needed to be spent training new employees on proper food safety practices. Food service establishments are very busy places and time is priceless. Simple, short, and educational videos such as the handwashing video created by the Handwashing For Life Institute provides a great training alternative for these businesses!
Is there a risk of the new restaurateurs seeing your auditors more as a police force rather than the coaches they truly are?
I do not see this as a concern. Our office prides ourselves on the partnerships and relationships we have built and continue to develop with licensed establishments. We strive to work with licensed establishments to provide them with the education and tools that will help them be successful.
Over fifteen years ago you decided to give a handwash training video to every new restaurant. You chose our language-free edition The WHY/WHEN/HOW. How important was its graphic, wordless messaging in your decision?
The food service industry continues to evolve and become more diverse. Our office needed to ensure that every operator had a tool to use that every employee could receive and understand. Handwashing is crucial to food safety and the graphics and wordless messaging in this video make that clear!
Thank you for your leadership. Honoring your spirit of innovation and dedication to hand hygiene, Handwashing For Life is pleased to make the language-free “Why, When & How” handwash training video freely available to all.
