Tour Audio System Transforms Employee Training Tours
Hector Santana says one of the best parts of his job at Fresh Venture Foods is conducting weekly employee training tours and orientation for new employees.
“The tours are meant to give new hires an in-depth look at our entire operation”, says Santana, the company’s Continuous Improvement and Safety Manager. “We want everyone working here to know how the plant operates, how all the departments interact, and how their jobs fit into the big picture.”
Employee Training Tour Audio Needs
Fresh Venture Foods is a fresh-cut produce processor in Santa Maria, California that provides vegetable and salad products to the food service industry. The company has about 275 year-round employees and averages 25 new hires, each month.
Santana may enjoy conducting employee training tours, but he’s had some difficulties doing so. “The decibel level in our factory is so high that I always have to yell to be heard, and even when people can hear me sometimes they can’t understand what I’m saying. More than a few times I’ve had to cut tours short because my voice gave out.”
But all that changed, Santana says, when Fresh Venture Foods purchased a two-way wireless audio communications system called ListenTALK, consisting of transceivers and headsets from Tripp Communications Systems.
New hires can now hear every word Santana is saying, regardless of how noisy it is on the production line or how far away from him they’re standing. Asking questions is easy, too. Participants simply hold down a button to speak into the transceiver’s microphone, and can listen and respond to other tour members’ questions and comments, as well.
Audio System Improves Employee Training Tours
Because of the new two-way system Santana has been able to lengthen his tours from an hour-and-a-half to nearly two-and-a-half hours – enough time to conduct a thorough tour of the 100,000 square-foot facility.
Stops on the tour include the loading dock, where broccoli, spinach and other produce arrives fresh-picked from the fields; quality control, where product is inspected for foreign objects such as insects and wood; production lines where produce is washed, dried, weighed and packaged; and shipping, where the finished product is sent out to big box stores such as Trader Joe’s and Costco.
What Santana likes best about the new system is the opportunity it gives him to demonstrate best practices to new hires. “People really learn when you not only show them how to do something, but explain it to them in words. I couldn’t do that before because people couldn’t hear me, but now that tour participants can actually see what I’m doing and hear me at the same time, it’s a much better learning experience.”
The company has been getting great feedback from employees on how easy it is to hear on tours and how simple the audio communications equipment is to use. And Santana – in spite of giving much longer tours – says he hasn’t lost his voice even once since he started using the Tripp Communications Systems’ solution.