Customer Case Study: International Food Manufacturer

Our client is one of the world's largest producers of Latin foods with factories in North and Central America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The Head of Manufacturing for the UK’s largest site was seeking to ensure their plant, and their wider UK operations, were in a state of readiness for any disruption. A fire at another plant in Europe, supply chain uncertainty, and the COVID pandemic had highlighted the importance of effective preparedness for incident, emergency, and crisis situations. Our client sought out CHEMTREC’s crisis experts to run an immersive training and exercise session for her senior management team, recognizing CHEMTRECs strong track record in supporting teams less familiar with crisis and emergency management.

Increased understanding of roles and responsibilities

The site had a well-developed crisis and emergency plan. CHEMTREC’s consultants reviewed this plan prior to training and tailored the training to ensure the roles and responsibilities included in the plan were brought to life through interactive discussions and scenarios. The scenario in particular allowed individuals to discuss and visualize their role in a real event and explore how best to interact with colleagues and identify areas for improvement. Training is about bringing the plan to life, letting potential responders live and breathe the role, and understand how it works in practice and then adapting plans where required.

 “We will take a lot away from this course to improve our procedures.”

Increased confidence in responding to a crisis, incident, or emergency

CHEMTREC’s approach to crisis, incident, and emergency management, meant not just training the team on their plan, but also exploring the underpinning skills required to effectively coordinate any response. Through the training, the team explored the application of situational awareness, leadership styles, and decision-making tools, and discussed the importance of communication. The team also discussed the potential stress and pressure which may come in dealing with a response, the impacts of this, and strategies to handle this. The outcome was a marked increase in confidence, with the team not only understanding their plan, but also having practical tools and techniques to apply this in practice. 

Team building and bonding

The training session was the first time in months that many of the team members had gathered in the same room and we recognize this is often the case as workforces become more dispersed and personnel work from home. The fun, engaging, and relaxed manner of the training offered opportunities for the team to re-engage and bond. Exercises such as a “zombie invasion,” brought practical benefit to the team, but also created an atmosphere in which the team could learn more about each other and reconnect. This is vital not only in a crisis or emergency situation, but also in day to day business where close working relationships matter. CHEMTREC prides itself on delivering training which is innovative and engaging.

 “Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the day it was nice to have a fun but factual training day.”

Overall Results

The team left the day feeling energized, informed, confident, and focused on further improving their crisis, incident, and emergency management capabilities. Further training sessions across their UK plants are planned as they look to embed these principles across their operations. 

Let’s chat

If you are interested in improving your team’s readiness to respond, increasing their confidence and in doing so decreasing the likely scale and impact of any incident, get in touch with a member of our team now via email crisissolutions@chemtrec.com or call 1-800-262-8200 or +44 (0) 20 3769 8468.