Certificate training courses are a necessity in food manufacturing / processing operation. FDA and USDA regulatory requirements mandate a variety of food safety training including HACCP, FSPCA’s PCQI, IAVA, FSVP and others. In addition, customer and third-party audit standards impose additional requirements such as Internal Food Safety Auditor certificate class.
If it comes to certificate training, there are number of approaches that instructors use to ensure the effectiveness of training. In our example, here at BD Food Safety Consultants, we prefer explaining the content over reading the slides. Over the years we noticed that with a diversified audience, explaining the content in a simple manner brings better results rather than using a lot of scientific and standardized language. Real life examples from food manufacturing or processing facilities are an additional aid helping people to understand the concept.
Lead instructors teaching certificate courses in food safety not only should have the skills but also operational experience.
The way we learn also varies. Some people absorb knowledge while actively listening to the content. For others it is more efficient to read at the same time as they listen. Others need a lot of focus without distractions while attending the course. In recent years, online learning has become more popular than classroom courses. When the pandemic broke out, we needed to swiftly change the methods we interacted with other professionals during meetings and training courses. BD Food Safety Consultants have transitioned to using Zoom and similar software to provide essential food safety certification courses. We noticed that classroom course attendance to the levels we remember from pandemic never came back.
More food safety professionals prefer taking the course from the comfort of their chair and cutting the time and cost spent on travel. For many people this is the best option to attend the necessary course and minimize the inconvenience related to travel and being away from the family.
As for us, the Lead Instructors, we prefer classroom training and the in – person teaching with human interactions. It does happen quite often that in online live training, people get distracted by number of things like coworkers walking into the room, phone calls or access to their email and temptation to do other things except attending the course. The worst feeling for the instructor is to see people are not paying attention and the thought that the presentation we provide is boring. Food Safety Courses are science and regulatory compliance courses that can be stiff. Not having the human interaction component in online courses makes it extra difficult to engage the audience and make the content more appealing. At the same time, we need to adjust to the new reality and find they way to keep the attendees interested in the content. At the end of the day the audience is why we teach, and their preferences matter to us the most. At BD Food Safety Consultants LLC, we offer courses in dual format (classroom and online live). Later this year we will be decreasing the frequency of classroom training and filling the schedule with more zoom based online live courses. To see the schedule for the upcoming food safety certificate training please visit our website at https://bdfoodsafety.com/training-programs/ or contact us at [email protected] or 815-641-6404.