I completely understand. If you allow mustaches what's the risk, is your process enclosed, is your product high risk? What are the repercussions from a personnel stand point. Is there a length limit, is there rule for maintaining the mustache. Who will enforce the rule? Is the rule open to interpretation (will one shift lead enforce it different than another). We viewed all these things as headaches and decided to go with a more blanket across the board policy.
Well I am actually being quite sneaky about this and some of our other issues. Traditionally our HACCP and food safety team is made up of our managers but really only QA does the actual hazard analysis. This time I am using FSMA as an excuse to shake things up a bit and the food safety team includes volunteers from the production floor. They will each be in charge of a particular area and they will do a hazard analysis on that particular area. We will go over what everyone wrote as a group when everyone is finished. Naturally QA is in charge of the final result and there will be questions about micro etc. I'm sure, but this way people from the production floor can see how much of a hazard certain things (such as JEWELRY and HAIR) can be. I figure if they come up with it (or I guide them toward it), they will be more likely to comply or at least not put up as much of a fight. And if they find that mustaches or arms must be covered up at all times, then I can have a better case to present for the plant manager as well. Has anyone else done something like this? Did it work out?