The FGC's Safe In-Store Pass

The Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 requires all employees to be trained in Health and Safety (H&S). This poses a considerable challenge to an industry such as the FMCG which has a rapidly changing and geographically dispersed workforce, including many temporary workers. The cost of providing H&S training through face to face workshops is significant, requiring time out from work to attend and disadvantages workers outside the main centres where sessions are held. In addition it can be unclear whether workshop attendees have attained an adequate level of knowledge from the training due to a lack of standardised testing

A streamlined system was needed to reduce cost of training and set a standard quality outcome for the training

The New Zealand Food & Grocery Council (FGC), representing New Zealand manufacturers and suppliers in the FMCG industry, sought a better way to deliver this H&S compliance training. Partnering with Intuto and bringing together big names in the FMCG industry, including Progressive Enterprises, Foodstuffs and The Warehouse, an end to end solution was developed to deliver this training online industry wide. The new approach enabled participation from any computer with an internet connection, standardised testing and certification all via a straightforward online platform. In order to receive their Safe In-Store Pass, and if relevant the Food Handling approved pass, employees are required to gain over 80% in the online assessment, which is tracked against their record of learning. The requirement for this high pass mark helps to ensure that an employee has actively learned from the online course and understands the principles of H&S in the workplace. Upon successfully achieving the required test score Intuto manages the production of an individual photo ID card for each employee.

The programme has been running since 2008 and more than 35,000 employees have successfully gained the Safe In-Store Pass to date. As well, a growing number of companies are rightly claiming to be 100% health & safety compliant, which means more and more staff, colleagues and the public when shopping are safer and better protected than ever before. Given this level of uptake, estimates put the saving to the industry, in time and cost, at well over $7 million. As the programme and level of compliance continues to grow this saving will continue to increase in the FMCG industry for the foreseeable future.

‘The relationship we have with Intuto is great. Our Merchandisers and Taste Testers complete the courses online at their own pace and we have not experienced any problems with this. We have found Intuto easy to deal with and very obliging. If we have any queries we email Natalie, our Customer Service person, and the problem gets solved in a matter of minutes. Thank you Intuto for such a great service.’ Lois Barham, Prolife Foods