Thursday, August 27, 2015

Staff Turnover and Training

In an August 25 article entitled "A Fresh Perspective on Cleaning Calf Housing" published in Progressive Dairyman Brian Wesemann made a great point about staff turnover.

He pointed out that relative to cleaning and sanitizing calf housing the calf supervisor must keep in mind that cleaning calf housing does not have the repetition cycle that many other jobs do. Feeding is every day. Cleaning equipment is daily. Cleaning calf housing is almost always on a significantly longer cycle.

The cleaning cycle for calf housing may be long enough to span employee changes. Therefore, it is good to keep in mind the need for both training and re-training. 

For example, if part of sanitizing includes using a foaming agent to prolong the disinfectant exposure time the worker must follow the correct steps in measuring the foaming agent, mixing with the proper volume of water and applying the foam according to the manufacturer's recommendations. 

Doing this step correctly depends on receiving instructions that are more complete than, "Foam the hutches after you pressure wash them."

Thanks to Brian for reminding us of the implications of staff turnover for training. 


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