Safety of Pacific Seafoods 

As we all know the tsunami in Japan damaged the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactor complex, resulting in the discharge of radioactive materials into the atmosphere and Pacific Ocean. Wheelwright Consultants received an inquiry about the safety of serving/consuming fish and shellfish harvested in the Pacific Ocean. In response to this inquiry, we are providing you with the following information:

Although there was some initial concern about the safety of Pacific seafood, the general consensus is that there is no risk for the following reasons:

1.     Less than 4% of all the food imported into the United States comes from Japan and the amount of that which is seafood is limited.

2.     The tsunami did major damage to the fishing fleet in the area of the reactor, meaning that very little seafood is being harvested from this region and of that which is harvested, the Japanese government has restricted its exportation.

3.     While the levels of radiation discharged have greatly exceeded allowable limits, there are several factors that have limited the likelihood that significant levels of contaminants will end up in fish harvested from the Pacific and served here:

a.     Water dilutes radioactive material, and there is a lot of water in the Pacific.

b.     The intensity of radiation decreases rapidly as the distance from the source increases and the distances in the Pacific are great.

c.     The half-life of one of the radioactive elements of concern [iodine 131] is eight (8) days, meaning that half of the radioactive material disappears after eight days - so given the time between catching and serving most of the radioactive iodine, if present at all, will have "decayed" into a harmless form of iodine.

d.     For those isotopes of greater concern, cesium 134 (half life of 2.5 years) and cesium 137 (half life of 30 years), these products are readily excreted from fish and do not build-up in them, resulting in little or no risk to those consuming fish.  

4.     While there is little concern about radiation contamination, the Food and Drug Administration has been sampling and testing Pacific seafood and as of April 19, 2011 has not found any radiation contamination.

We will keep you informed of any changes that we learn of with respect to the safety of Pacific seafood. As always, we recommend that you serve fish that are considered to be "sustainable" in terms of the fisheries stocks and methods of harvesting. For more information on sustainable seafood visit the Monterey Aquarium website.

For years now we have heard that the United States economy has matured and moved from a manufacturing to a "service" economy. This means that more economic activity is generated providing services than from manufacturing goods, particularly durable goods. With "service" so important to our economy you might think that those who provide services, store clerks, waitresses, waiters, service personnel would be highly valued and respected. One might expect that the levels of service and satisfaction with service would be increasing.

Unfortunately, the opposite is probably more likely the case. The American Customer Service Index, a measure of customer satisfaction with service, remains stuck in the mid 70% range overall, while satisfaction with restaurant service dropped 4% between 2009 and 2010.

Certainly attitudes towards service vary from place to place. In many places as long as you buy something you can sit for extended periods of time without a server approaching you to "sell" you something else and you have to signal that you are ready for check.

At London's Heathrow (International) Airport you can use a credit card at sit-down restaurants, but can only pay in cash in pounds Sterling at the kiosks. Clearly a failure of management to know their clientele or understand their needs during what could be an extended wait between flights.

As a consultant I am not on the floor in restaurant during service hours. I frequently dine out and have had a full gamut of service experiences from excellent to acceptable to very poor.

In the two situations where I received exceptional service (one in Boston, one in Israel) the restaurants' General Manager and other managers were on the floor orchestrating the action and available to both guests and staff.

In each of the recent cases where I have received some very poor service, no manager was present or accessible to guests. In each case, I wrote letters to the General Managers describing my experience. Not a single one of these individuals responded to my letter.

As for the vast majority of experiences, where the service was in the "acceptable" range the servers were generally "ok" with the technical aspects of service - indicating some basic level of training (although few know how to open a bottle of wine correctly), but they were deficient in the non-technical aspects of the job - not welcoming, inattentive, improperly groomed, improper communication, etc.

I read that winning college coaches spend 10% of their time recruiting players and 90% of their time coaching their players to develop their skills and get the best performance from them. Coaches are visible walking up and down on the sidelines during the games so that they can see what is going on. They respond to what they see by sending in plays, directing positioning, recognizing those who perform well, and coaching their players to perform even better. It has become popular to refer to employees as "team members", so perhaps managers should emulate coaches in their allocation of time and their being "on the sidelines, coaching" during the "game".

As we approach the summer "season", I would suggest that you do five things to boost your service performance:

1. Review your policies and procedures and eliminate or change those that do not contribute positively to the guest experience.
2. Commit to having a manager present and visible on the floor at all times to work with and coach staff and to talk to guests.
3. Hire and retain "people" people, who understand and respond to the guests' need to be treated pleasantly, with respect.
4. Provide training to your staff in the important, but non-technical aspects of their jobs including personal hygiene standards and communication skills.
5. Find ways to recognize and reward service excellence.  

Recently a bill was introduced in the Massachusetts legislature that would require all businesses with more than a certain number of employees to provide a minimum number of sick days a year to all employees. Opponents of this legislation suggest that this is one more instance of government trying to tell business people how to run their businesses. They are trying to mobilize business owners and managers to fight this bill.

Wheelwright Consultants believes that citizen involvement in the legislative process is good and appropriate. As individual citizens and business citizens you should take an active role and communicate your views to your legislators.

We would, however, like to point out a couple of reasons why providing employees with paid sick leave might not be such a bad idea:

·While it will raise labor costs, if applied uniformly by law this will impact most businesses, so that no business will be at a competitive disadvantage. (Remember the concerns about banning smoking in restaurants and bars . . .the dire predictions did not materialize.)

·  Our industry prepares and serves more than 36% of all the meals consumed in the United States. It would seem to be in our best interest to make sure that our food handlers are not working when sick and providing some measure of sick pay might reduce the number of employees working when sick and the potential for their spreading these illnesses to our customers, clients, residents, patients, students, etc.

·  In addition to the actual risk of spreading illness, we need to consider the image that we present to our customers, clients, residents, patients, students, etc. How will they respond to the sight of sick employees in our businesses? On our "fighting" sick pay legislation?

·Multiple research studies prove employee benefits, such as vacation, holiday, and sick pay are important factors in employee retention, motivation, and productivity, the benefits of which could outweigh the costs.

While we understand that there is a potential for abuse of sick pay, we suggest that there are ways to prevent or minimize this. These methods are part of a professional human resources management program.

If, as so many businesses proclaim, their most valuable assets are their employees, then perhaps it is time to start treating them as such and provide the training, work environment, and benefits that demonstrate the value of these employees.

We urge you to become politically active and make your views known to your legislators. Before you do, we would ask that you educate yourself about both sides of an issue and urge you to take a position that will benefit you, your business, and your community the most in the long run.