Food Recall Process

What is food recall?

A food recall is a voluntary action initiated by the manufacturers when they come to know that the product has been adulterated, unsafe or mislabeled. This action is a corrective action taken by the manufacturer to protect the consumers from prospective undesirable effects.

Why food recalls need to be initiated?

Basically the recall happens when the management is made aware of the situations like their products are unsafe for usage or adulterated or mislabeled. The recall will also be initiated where it is a manufacturer’s defect which came into light only after the sample test. It might be the company’s food safety policy, regulatory requirement or on top of all it might be ethics of the company. Though the financial implication on the recall is very gross, it is important to recall because it would jeopardize consumer’s life and tarnish the company’s image and protect it from the negative publicity.

The food recall is classified into 3 classes:

The food safety regulatory bodies evaluates the potential hazard and assesses the hazard severity, classifies under which the food need to be recalled.

Class	Definition	Examples
Class I	A health hazard situation where there is a reasonable probability that eating the food will cause serious, adverse health consequences, or death.	E.coli O157:H7 in ground beef; Salmonella in peanut butter; Food with an undeclared allergen
Class II	A health hazard situation where there is a remote probability of adverse health consequences from eating the food.	Product containing a foreign material
Class III	A situation where eating the food will not cause adverse health consequences.	Minor labeling problems, such as improper format or undeclared ingredients that are not allergens

Communication for food recall:

The manufacturer should plan his recall process before a problem is triggered. The management should take an initiative to initiate the process of food recall by communicating it to his authorized distribution agents.

With the help of local food regulatory bodies the recall can be initiated.

Analysis:

Post recall it is very vital to evaluate the recall which helps in determining the after effects of the recall and the adverse implications it has. Effective measures should be taken to restrict the future possibilities of recall.

Conclusion:

Proper planning and traceability system will help to complete the food recall process smoothly. Communication and proper coordination with the distribution agents within the short notice to recall the food items will be an added advantage, which helps in saving consumer’s life from the potential hazards and save the company from getting a negative image.

Benefits of Stakeholder Engagement

A stakeholder is the one who can influence or be influenced by the actions, objectives and policies of an organization.

Stakeholders may be external or internal like our clients, vendors, service providers, staff etc. The process where in the stakeholders are directly or indirectly involved and are affected by the organization’s decisions or can influence the implementation of organization’s decisions is the stakeholder engagement.

Why stakeholder engagement:

When Stakeholders can affect or get affected by the actions and the achievements of the organization, an opportunity to engage them in commenting or suggesting on the development of decisions which affect them will be proved as a better option. If these kind of steps are not taken to engage the stakeholders, there might be a situation where in the organization is forced to engage them giving in for the demands of the stakeholders resulting in a difficult situation. When the organization is aware of the changes in the society and the effect of it on the organization, which relates to the overall performance of the organization then only a meaningful engagement takes place.  

   

Benefits of stakeholder engagement:

An effective stakeholder engagement facilitates better planned and clear policies. The meaningful engagement can be mutually benefitted to the external and internal stakeholders. For external stakeholders the benefits of engagement would be an opportunity to contribute their comments or suggestions and have their issues heard and participation in the decision making process and also greater opportunities to contribute directly to the policies through open and transparent communication. For internal stakeholders the benefit of engagement includes an opportunity to give their improved comments and suggestions which help in higher quality decision making.  

Benefits of using keyboard shortcuts

Most of us feel that using a mouse instead of keyboard is very easy and flexible. Although usage of mouse repeatedly for certain functions is recommended, for the regular and voluminous work mouse usage is not recommended as it consumes more than half of your time. It is advisable to restrict the excessive mouse usage. Almost all mouse actions can be done through keyboard shortcuts.

Using keyboard shortcuts helps in better focus and work completion in less time than compared to the time consumed while using a mouse. This results in timely and stress free work.

How can I master keyboard shortcuts?

Learn as you go. Try to use menu check for any associated keyboard shortcut, learn it and use it. The more you use it you tend to remember and spontaneously you use that command for your requirement. Help menu is always there when you wanted to know more commands.

Here are some useful keyboard shortcuts in MS Word

CTRL+N - Create a new document of the same type as the current or most recent document

CTRL+O - Open a document

CTRL+W - Close a document                                                             

ALT+CTRL+S - Split the document window

ALT+SHIFT+C - Remove the document window split

CTRL+S - Save a document

CTRL+F - Find text, formatting, and special items

ALT+CTRL+Z - Go back to a page, bookmark, footnote, table, comment, graphic, or other location

ALT+CTRL+HOME Browse through a document

ESC Cancel an action

CTRL+Z Undo an action

Some useful keyboard shortcuts in MS Excel

CTRL+A Selects the entire worksheet.

CTRL+B Applies or removes bold formatting.

CTRL+C Copies the selected cells.

CTRL+D Uses the Fill Down command to copy the contents and format of the topmost cell of a selected range into the cells below.

CTRL+F Displays the Find dialog box.

SHIFT+F5 also displays this dialog box, while SHIFT+F4 repeats the last Find

action.

CTRL+G Displays the Go To dialog box.

F5 also displays this dialog box.

CTRL+H Displays the Find and Replace dialog box.

CTRL+I Applies or removes italic formatting.

CTRL+K Displays the Insert Hyperlink dialog box for new hyperlinks or the Edit Hyperlink dialog box for selected existing hyperlinks.

CTRL+L Displays the Create List dialog box.

Happy using keyboard shortcuts

Leadership

A leader brings people together to a common objective. Not all who bring the people together becomes an effective leader. The ability to assign tasks to the relevant member of the team and get the task completed without any delay and if needed, help in completing the tasks while handling all kind of situations displays effective leadership. A visionary leader has the capacity to influence people by means of personal characteristics and/or behaviors to achieve a common goal.

Who are leaders?

Focused on the behavioral aspects of individuals who are ambitious and ability to perform are influential leaders.

At JIC we provide opportunities to our middle and junior levels managers, as well as employees to become effective leaders.

What is an effective leadership style?

Experience suggests that successful leaders don’t invariably behave in identical ways. They may act very differently, even in similar situations, and have quite different personalities.

We train our employees to be effective leaders; we review their performance on a regular basis, and in case of any lapses; further internal/external training is suggested and ultimately make our employees effective leaders.

Is leadership a process?

Leadership is definitely a process where an individual influences others towards an objective.

As insights into the nature of leadership and the effectiveness of leaders have evolved greatly, it’s clear that individual behaviors alone cannot fully explain leadership effectiveness.

With that in mind, leadership has been described as a process, or as a capability of the organisation (rather than individual), emphasizing the interplay of leaders, followers, and the organisational context that impact leadership effectiveness.

Creating Leaders@ JIC

JIC uses various channels for developing the leadership qualities in an individual.

Interested employees who are keen at career development are given an opportunity to nominate their names for the career development program which is conducted every six months.

Additionally; during the performance review, the immediate Manager advises about his further promotion based on the achievements.

Simple tips to minimize or avoid stress

When we are overloaded with work and everything seems to have become too much and beyond control and wonder whether we can cope up with the demands that is being placed before us results in work related STRESS.

Having pressure at work can be looked at from a different perspective, it can be a positive element and may be a motivation to perform better and at times it is essential to have pressure to achieve the targets and show a better performance, but when this pressure becomes excessive it becomes stress which is a reaction of pressure.

At JIC we follow few simple tips to minimize or avoid stress

1.      Get physical

We understand the employee’s stressful situations that affect their physical being as well as their routine work.

 All the measures like providing facilities for indoor and outdoor gaming activities which help to distress have been provided.

2.      Talk it over

Having someone to share our problems can be of a great help and get de stressed.

Our HR department is always there to have a one to one talk with the employees and listen to their personal and official grievances and provide counselling sessions if needed.

3.      Relaxation

To get de-stressed from the work, one way is to divert the mind from the work and get relaxed.  Employees are taking on outdoor funday picnics and provide facilities like recreation rooms to play varieties of indoor games and participate in the competitions held.

4.      Learn to say ‘No’

Most of us out of fear say yes for all the additional tasks thrown our way. The fight between completing the additional tasks and because of many constraints the inability to complete the tasks ends up in being pressurized and stressed.

Instead of all this, learning to say, “NO” to additional tasks will help to reduce the stress levels.

5.      Manage your time

At times, we all feel overburdened by our incomplete tasks and that becomes a cause for stress.

We should know that we cannot do everything at one time so prioritizing our tasks help us to be organized and complete the work within the specified time.

At JIC we train our employees on time management and each employee is given individual objectives and are monitored by the immediate supervisor on a regular basis.

Importance of Best Practices in Accounts Payable

Managing Accounts Payable effectively is a herculean task if proper processes are not followed. If the processes are not in place managing the voluminous invoices become difficult and the tendency to make mistakes is more and leads to many awkward situations like:

-       Paying twice for the same invoice

-       More chances for fraud

-       When best practices are not followed, payments are typically delayed. This worsens the relationship with the vendors eventually affects their performance. 

-       Inefficient processes leads to increased expenses like paying for extra staff, late fees etc. 

-       Often times, when best practices are not followed, inaccurate information is provided which results in inaccurate financial statement. 

-       Inaccurate Financial statements and financial reporting results in faulty financial information for business decisions.

Implementing best practices for accounts payable will help in streamlining the invoice processing, fraud detection, vendor payments as per the terms and provides accurate financial statements for business decisions