Avoiding the Pitfalls of Traditional Audit Programs

A successful food safety audit goes a long way toward building a robust food safety culture. Unfortunately, many common pitfalls in traditional audit programs can hinder their progress. Examples include treating audits as just compliance checks, lack of clarity, and not clearly stating expectations for audits. Recognizing these pitfalls is essential to improving audit effectiveness and organizational outcomes. 

Pitfall #1: Perceived as Compliance Police

Audits are often seen solely as compliance checks, creating an “us vs. them” mentality between auditors and operators. This adversarial attitude leads to tension and resistance among employees, which can result in poor audit performance. 

To counteract this pitfall, position audits beyond compliance. They should instill a growth mindset that encourages behavior change. When employees see they can have a pivotal role in building and growing the company’s success, they become more invested in every food safety assessment. 

Pitfall #2: Lack of Clarity on What’s Being Evaluated

Many operators find audits mysterious and intimidating because they don’t understand what’s being evaluated and why. This lack of transparency leads to confusion and anxiety, which spills over to the employees. It’s imperative everyone understands what the food safety assessment will cover so they are on the same page. 

When everyone is clear on what the food safety audit will cover, they can take steps to ensure its success. This provides a morale boost throughout the company.  

Pitfall #3: Lengthy Audits Dilute Focus

Traditional audits can be excessively long and disruptive, diluting the focus on critical issues. This is especially true when the audit includes a long laundry list of things to examine. Not only is this an inefficient use of time, but it also reduces the audit's effectiveness because it’s trying to do too much. 

Instead, don’t try to evaluate every little thing. Keep the focus on what matters to your customers. For example, instead of focusing on an employee uniform, look at the speed of service. By doing so, you look at issues that will lead to improved customer satisfaction scores and increased sales. 

Pitfall #4: Ineffective Scoring Methods

Traditional scoring methods in a food safety audit often fail to drive the right behaviors. Keep in mind your food safety assessment is not just about compliance. You want to affect behavioral change that leads to improved operations. Traditional scoring methods typically don’t align with desired outcomes, so those scores don’t direct your desired change. In addition, ineffective scoring leads to poor employee engagement that can directly impact compliance.  

Scoring methods should be crafted to reflect not only compliance but also suggest ways to improve operations. This turns audit programs into opportunities to create a better company that puts customer needs first. 

Pitfall #5: Lack of Closed Loop on Corrective Actions

Traditional audits often lack a closed-loop system for following up on corrective actions, which can result in continued low performance. A successful food safety assessment addresses issues comprehensively so employees understand problem areas and how to best improve them.  

Poor employee morale and lower customer satisfaction scores are some of the ongoing risks and unresolved issues due to inadequate follow-up. Corrective action plans, coaching assessments, and a closed-loop system for follow-ups can affect positive change at poor-performing locations and inspire better-performing locations to do even better. 

Pitfall #6: Unclear Expectations and Accountabilities

Unclear expectations and accountabilities in traditional food safety audit programs hamper audit effectiveness. The result often is confusion and inconsistent performance because employees don’t know what they are supposed to do.

Having clearer expectations and accountabilities means each employee understands exactly what needs to be done. This leads to successes and opportunities for improvement going forward. 

As such, go over what’s expected in a food safety assessment ahead of time, documenting who is responsible for what task or work area. Encourage employees to ask questions so they are clear on their role in future food safety audits. 

Pitfall #7: Overly Severe Consequences of a Failed Audit

When a food safety audit doesn’t go well, there can be consequences. These may be minor, such as additional staff training. But they could be more severe, leading to overly severe consequences, such as closing a location. Those overly severe consequences could create a culture of fear rather than improvement, negatively impacting employee morale and their willingness to engage in the food safety program. 

While these overly severe consequences of a failed audit should not be minimized, it’s imperative to keep them in perspective so employees take an active role in improving performance on food safety audits. 

Conclusion

Traditional audit programs' pitfalls include focusing on compliance rather than improvement, not offering clear expectations, and using effective scoring methods. Addressing these pitfalls to make audit programs more effective and supportive is essential to driving improvement and keeping employees engaged. The overall result could lead to better-performing stores, higher customer satisfaction scores, and stronger sales. 

To learn more about improving your safety assessment program, download 6 Principles to a Better Audit.