Person in Charge has Major Role Related to Employee Health
In the last blog, we talked about the importance of having healthy employees working in a foodservice operation and how that is related to foodborne illness. In this blog, we discuss employee health controls, one of five key public health interventions needed to control for risk factors of foodborne illness. The purpose of this control is to minimize the possibility that employees contaminate food. That means that employees need to be healthy, and that they report any symptoms or illnesses that might impact the safety of food served to customers.
The person-in-charge plays a major role in implementing employee health controls. First and foremost, the PIC needs to understand why employee health is important and its impact on the foodservice operation, what must be reported, when employees should be excluded or restricted from work, when they can return to work, and what must be reported to the regulatory agency.
Second, the PIC must communicate the responsibilities to employees, and must have documentation that employees know what they should do. Each foodservice operation must have written documentation to verify:
- Implementation of an employee health policy. Remember how we keep saying that written standard operating procedures are so important? This is a case in point. Your policy should include what should be reported and to whom. It should outline basic guidelines on when an employee can return to work.
- ALL employees are informed of their responsibility to report symptoms and illness.
- A training curriculum is established and rosters showing that employees have completed the training.
Note: Some managers have employees sign an agreement indicating they have received this information. One resource is Form 1-B, which is included in Annex 7 of the 2017 FDA Food Code (link). It is designed to be used in training and is signed and dated by the employee. This form would serve as documentation that the employee was told about his/her responsibility to report symptoms/illnesses. This form can be used as is, or modified for specific needs of an operation.
Third, the PIC has the responsibility to report some illnesses to the regulatory agency. Additionally, it should be reported if an employee is jaundiced or if they have one of the diagnoses listed on the previous blog.
Exclusion and Restriction
Exclusion means that an employee is not allowed to work, or even enter, a foodservice operation as a food employee. Restriction means that an employee’s activities are limited to prevent transmitting a disease through food. That means that an employee with restriction can’t work with exposed food, clean equipment, linens, or unwrapped single-service/use items.
How do you know when to remove exclusions and restrictions? Section 2-201.13 of the Food Code specifies when removing exclusions and restrictions can occur. It varies based on the diagnosis. For example, in some cases the individuals just has to be asymptomatic for 24 hours, while in other cases the employee must provide documentation that they can return to work from a health practitioner. Also, there is extensive information and discussion about employee health in Annex 3 of the Food Code.
There are many good resources available from Cooperative Extension and professional organizations to assist with communicating elements of an employee health policy. FoodHandler has videos and signage to reinforce fundamental messages about handwashing and avoidance of bare hand contact with foods. A SafeBites webinar on Standard Operating Procedures is also available.
Bottom line—employee health is the responsibility of both the employees and the person in charge. The person in charge has the responsibility to set the work place rules and monitor that they are followed. Be sure that the guidance in the Food Code is followed in your foodservice to minimize the risk for contamination. Risk nothing!
Foodborne Illness Myths & Facts
“It must have been something I ate.” That’s the typical statement when a person develops some relatively minor symptoms from food. Maybe not severe enough to go to the doctor so you choose to tough it out without medical care. Sudden onset of flu-like symptoms such as onset of stomach cramps, diarrhea, vomiting and fever could possibly mean you are the victim of a foodborne illness. The illness is sometimes referred to as “food poisoning”, but it’s often misdiagnosed.
Don’t Compromise: Clean and Sanitize
The subject is cleaning and sanitizing. Chefs, food service directors, managers and staff try to practice safe food-handling at every turn in the kitchen. Don’t let that effort go down the drain by slacking off on the many aspects of sanitation. That includes dish and ware-washing techniques (pots, pans, equipment), and cleaning all the areas that give us that “neat as a pin” appearance in your customers eyes. Customers seldom fail to bring that soiled silverware or glass with lipstick on it to the attention of the manager or wait staff. Improperly cleaning and sanitizing of food contact equipment does allow transmission of pathogenic microorganisms to food and ultimately our customer.
The Route to Safer Fresh Fruits and Vegetables
Although fruits and vegetables are one of the healthiest foods sources in our diet, we continue to have foodborne disease outbreaks of significance from produce, sometimes affecting large groups of people in multiple states because of their wide distribution. The CDC estimates that fresh produce now causes a huge number of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States. Produce needs our continued food safety efforts at the restaurant level as well as at the stages in agricultural production. Occasionally, fresh fruits and vegetables can become contaminated with harmful bacteria or viruses, such as Salmonella, E. coli 0157:H7, Norovirus, and Hepatitis A. This contamination can occur at any point from the field to our table. If eaten, contaminated fruits and vegetables can cause foodborne illness.
Be Cool, Chill Out, Refrigerate Promptly!
The Cold Chain -- Keeping perishable foods at proper cold holding temperatures (between 28°F and 41°F maximum or 0°F for frozen food) from your food producers / manufacturers to your customers has to be one of our strongest links to safe food and high quality. Sometimes that is referred to in the food industry as “maintaining the COLD CHAIN”. Any slip ups in the cold chain, and we have a weak link. Most all of our state food regulations require 41°F as a cold maximum, but colder is a “best practice” policy to maintain.
