15 replies to this topic

[MMQA]

Hi everyone. I am hoping to get some guidance regarding ongoing issues I encounter at the facility I joined last year. I inherited an SQF system that was not properly reviewed for at least 3 years since no QA manager stayed at the role for more than a few months. I rushed to make updates and corrections as the audits were happening almost immediately after I joined. I was clear with management that this is not the usual way to handle the system but it was what needed to be done at the time.

 

After the audits and corrections, I finally have time to look at the gaps and implement actual change. Unfortunately, the management team is lacking in certain departments. The corrective actions I started in 2023 remain open due to lack of staff or cooperation. I have tried to work with the team, provide trainings and assign backups for the missing members of management. The lack of cooperation comes from an enormous push from the CEO to produce produce produce. This causes any follow ups, meetings, trainings, requests that come from food safety to be 'pushed to the side'. My monthly food safety meetings were even cancelled by the CEO since they are considered a waste of time. I have brought up my frustrations to my direct boss but this appears no go nowhere. In addition, I hold the highest position in Food Safety  along with all the responsibilities but get reprimanded for not being on the lines all day (like a QA tech).

 

Lets say for example that the open corrective actions include no work orders, no daily records of repairs, no PMs being done since last year. The existing PMs scheduled appear to be falsified since they include sign offs for equipment that does not exist at the facility.

 

I am also faced with equipment that is not properly cleaned, and when brought or 'caught' by QA at prestarts, the team and myself have suffered verbal abuse from management. The sanitation issues are also brought up by contractors.  Some lines are being ran without documented checks, untrained personnel etc. I have requested sanitation management to review cleaning procedures, the ones I found are older than 2020, several pieces of equipment do not have procedures and there are no training records for the cleaning staff on specific pieces of equipment. When I follow up on the progress of these reviews, I am met with an 'I haven't done it'.

 

I would like to add that my background and degree is in food safety, I have 10+ years experience and have also worked on the regulatory side with FDA. The industry I am currently in is baked goods/snacks.

 

This is not an all inclusive list of the issues that are being encountered, and did not provide additional details as I need to maintain anonymity. With the issues, attitude, and culture I am seeing, I would walk away if I could. I would like to get an honest opinion from my peers as I am at a point where I do not know if I can keep working here.

[SQFconsultant]

All of this boils down to your statement... "I would walk away if I could"...

 

Why can you not walk away? 

[MMQA]

All of this boils down to your statement... "I would walk away if I could"...

Why can you not walk away?

I do not have a backup job at the moment and have bills to pay is the most real answer. There is a point where if it comes to it I will, but was looking for feedback in case I am giving up too soon or exaggerating. I am confident in my abilities and knowledge but we all have moments of self doubt.

[Scampi]

You're risking your professional reputation by staying-- this will not change  (hence the reason no one stayed in your position for very long)

 

DOCUMENT everything you can to show the YOU"VE tried and let the company fail

 

This precisely why the management commitment portion is vital

[TSTARLING]

Food Safety, as we know, starts with management commitment. There is a reason why this is one of the first things that is covered under the SQF code. Unfortunately, it sounds like your management team are unwilling to commit the resources required to obtain/maintain compliance. After reading through your issues, it seems clear why your company has not been able to keep a QA manager. 

 

I think that if its possible, you need to paint the picture for them that companies which cannot maintain food safety programs are ultimately going to fail. Change can be painful, but can also lead to further success. Your CEO may not see these programs as necessity, but if your third party audits begin to fail, you lose customers, you lose trust, etc. A well resourced, well built Food Safety program will always pay off in the end. 

 

Good luck.  

[G M]

It seems very likely that the reason the previous food safety leaders left in a matter of months is that they saw the same problems you're running into and made the conclusion it wasn't worth the effort/risk to stay.  The owner and other leadership team members clearly don't consider food safety to be important and have no intention of changing -- when the inevitable lawsuits or criminal cases come, or some important customers find out how horrible their food safety records are and drop them as a supplier, I would not want to be the food safety leader left holding that hot potato.

 

You can leave them with a list of the critical food safety culture failures you will not risk your professional reputation for during the exit interview.  Odds are they've heard it before.

Edited by G M, 11 April 2024 - 06:53 PM.

[OrRedFood]

I can really relate to your situation - I took a new job 6 months ago, and this is exactly what I walked into.  I had 6 audits my first 6 weeks and failed all of them. The former QA manager's programs were a dog & pony show based on carefully selected "production records" provided, steering the auditor towards easy products to perform mock recalls, and basically the luck of the devil.  Sanitation was a joke, production records a mess.    

 

The corporate quality director is my boss, and he had no idea, as he was busy managing other plants and was kept out of this mess. No owner/management commitment, just keep producing. I was looking for a new job after 2 months. However, the corporate QA director began supporting our plant and me personally, the plant manager and other management were let go, and new key people brought in when the people with the money realized we were in trouble.  Only now am I seeing the results beginning to take hold.  

 

I would stay until you have a new job secured, and as others have said, document everything, what you did to correct the situation, who you told, emails, etc..  I found that our plant did not even have a corrective action log, so I created one and my first correction was the creation of the CAR log! I wish you the best!

[ChristinaK]

Honestly, I would document everything and jump ship as fast as possible. Find a couple of job recruiters on LinkedIn who specialize in food industry jobs and let them know you are looking to leave ASAP. Staying any longer at this company could end up hurting your career, especially if something goes pear-shaped and becomes news-worthy. 

 

Also, if you want to alert SQFI, there is a formal complaint process that includes complaints against SQF-certified sites. I would not "threaten" management with that if I were you; just submit a complaint and not say anything to your employer. The CB you use likely also has a way of receiving complaints about certified sites.

 

There is also the option of becoming a FSMA whistleblower. I understand if you do not want to go this route, however, if the company is failing to take critical food safety actions, I think it's in the best interest of the public to act. I'm attaching a factsheet on it.

Attached Files

•  OSHA3714.pdf   290.45KB   11 downloads

[PetriDish]

Wow I have seen these situations as a QA manager and had to leave. I tried my hardest but without management commitment I was fighting an uphill battle so I luckily found a company that cares about food safety and got out of there. This was not in baked goods, but I did recently interview, before I went to the other place that did not commit to food safety, to be the QA manager for a company that produces baked snacks and they could not keep a QA manager for very long, in southwest Missouri. I wonder how long until they fail. 

[dell]

Hi

 

No management commitment = No correction.

 

But, try your best all the time. Work hard and document everything and try to make a suitable reminder system to bring up most critical non compliance that effect the company's business. Try to cope with the situation, and yes this is a big challenge for any one as QC.

 

The best of luck.

[MMQA]

Thank you everyone for your input. Indeed the big issue here is management commitment and the higher ups seem to be alot of words but no action, it seems I am told certain things just to string me along while they keep producing. I am hopeful this is not the situation everywhere as I am considering a complete career change. It is difficult to try to push for change when the entire department keeps getting brushed off, food safety meetings either have 0 attendance or get completely cancelled by the CEO and QA cannot keep up with all the issues and corrective actions that keep piling up on my desk.

[jfrey123]

It's a rough spot to be in.  Like others stated, best you can do is document and try to lead these horses to water.  I'll share that in my current role, we created an online List through SharePoint for our plants to record the findings/deviations they experience at their plants (we call it a CAPA Tracker), and it's a tool we use in corporate QA to monitor performance of the various plants and report trended findings to our exec team.  Plants can choose open/in-progress/closed/and Request Corporate Attention as the status of the finding.  And, I hate to admit, one of my plants just took a finding because they'd had items from 2023 marked as Request Corporate Attention that never got the attention (ahem, funding) that they were asking for.  They were reported to the execs monthly and never got any action, but now that one plant was hit for it, I'm glad to report the findings are now being taken seriously.  It took an SQF hit to make the horses here drink the water lol.

[MMQA]

Thank you everyone for the feedback. While I am searching for a new opportunity elsewhere, i decided to open up a corrective action for management commitment. I wonder if anyone else has had to do this? I keep getting the run around from the top/ownership but at least i can document the action that has been attempted.

[ChristinaK]

Thank you everyone for the feedback. While I am searching for a new opportunity elsewhere, i decided to open up a corrective action for management commitment. I wonder if anyone else has had to do this? I keep getting the run around from the top/ownership but at least i can document the action that has been attempted.

 

Good to see you're trying to get out of that place.

 

This is an internal non-conformance and corrective action you're raising, correct? I would attach all previous open CA's and related communication to it as a visual to illustrate the impact lack of commitment is having. Maybe rank them according to risk, as well.

 

I had an issue with top management at a previous place, and what I did was explain in detail the impact of not shutting down production to fix something, how many times we'd been dinged on this equipment before during an audit, and that any auditor worth their salt would recognize the annual reoccurrences as a sign of a systemic issue involving a "mandatory food safety element"--risking certification and therefore loss of customers. I ended up convincing them, but there was an amount of moaning and groaning about it for months. 

 

Honestly I'm not sure it would have much impact in your situation...is there a way to contact the company CEO or President about it? I only had to convince the company president in my case (small business), so everyone else had to submit to it in the end. Not sure what would've gone down if there were more senior managers to grapple with...I think the fact that I actually shouted for the first time in several years had more to do with winning in the end than the actual food safety argument...haha. 

[MMQA]

Honestly I'm not sure it would have much impact in your situation...is there a way to contact the company CEO or President about it? I only had to convince the company president in my case (small business), so everyone else had to submit to it in the end. Not sure what would've gone down if there were more senior managers to grapple with...I think the fact that I actually shouted for the first time in several years had more to do with winning in the end than the actual food safety argument...haha.

Yes i spoke to the ceo and besides barely being allowed to talk, i feel i got the runaround and was told a meeting would happen with management and of course it didnt. I have repeatedly expressed my concerns to the person i report to and am left hanging with false promises of taking action. I have a list of all pending items for my next meeting (if anyone shows up) and will ask for follow ups. If there are none as usual, i will take this information to the ceo again (and add it to the corrective action). I have asked the PIC to attend these meetings but they dont.

Edited by MMQA, 15 May 2024 - 09:26 PM.

[ChristinaK]

Yes i spoke to the ceo and besides barely being allowed to talk, i feel i got the runaround and was told a meeting would happen with management and of course it didnt. I have repeatedly expressed my concerns to the person i report to and am left hanging with false promises of taking action. I have a list of all pending items for my next meeting (if anyone shows up) and will ask for follow ups. If there are none as usual, i will take this information to the ceo again (and add it to the corrective action). I have asked the PIC to attend these meetings but they dont.

 

That sounds beyond frustrating. I'm hoping you're able to make some progress.