Food Safety and Inspection Service United States Department of Agriculture Washington, D.C.  20250-3700

Office of Policy, Program Development and Evaluation

Meat and Poultry Advisory Committee Staff

FSIS should define the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA’s) required to perform the various job functions that its field workforce undertakes. Then it should do a needs assessment to determine what training the workforce needs to acquire those KSA’s. The needs assessment should include input from the field work force about areas where they feel they need more information or guidance. Information from state programs should also be gathered.

FSIS should work to increase educational levels of entry personnel.

After training, the agency should test the participants to verify that they acquired the needed KSA’s. This information should also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the training as an element of ongoing quality improvement.

The agency should shift the focus of its training to provide more science based training as appropriate at each level. This should include topics such as meat and poultry microbiology, with emphasis on food borne pathogens, bio-statistics, food technology and food safety interventions, cleaning and sanitizing, and basic hygiene.

The agency should address the barriers to the delivery of training such as the agency requirement that the majority of its workforce be present on production lines and, wherever possible, eliminate or work around those barriers.

The agency should fence the funds needed to provide the level of training that is required. More specifically, a dedicated percentage of the workforce should continually be in training. This represents a higher level of commitment to education and training on the part of the agency.

For new training initiatives, dedicate training slots for employees in state meat and poultry inspections.

While the Committee recognizes that FSIS endeavors to provide high quality and appropriate training for its entire workforce, the Committee considers that there are gaps in this training that need to be addressed. A needs assessment of the Agency workforce must be carried out and individuals must be identified who can determine gaps in existing training. The Committee understands that resource constraints are contributing factors to these gaps. The Committee recommends the Agency consider the following:

• Training must result in learning.
• Training should also include an "empowerment message" for field personnel. The goal is to assure employees at all levels recognize they are key players in protecting the public health of consumers.

• The effectiveness of training should be balanced with the cost and benefits.

• Joint training of FSIS inspection personnel and industry personnel should be encouraged on appropriate topics. Example topics would be technical issues such as food safety interventions and food borne pathogens. Joint training is not appropriate for FSIS enforcement training.
• Also encourage continued sharing of FSIS training materials with industry.

• FSIS should consider regional training. Recommend creation of District Training Officers.
• Consider alternative technologies for training purposes.

• The use of land grant college and public health agency training infrastructures should be investigated. Also input from consumer groups should be considered.
• Use of PolyCom.
• Videotraining

• Provide for interaction on applications of training. Real face to face training.

• FSIS needs to consider options to address resource allocation of personnel to ensure timely training and maintain necessary coverage of inspection duties. One method to consider is team based training approach.

• Training is an important mandate of FSIS’s mission. Commitment to training and the funds to necessary to accomplish this mission should not be compromised by budgetary cuts.

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Last modified:  December 05, 2002