Category: School Food Handler Trainings

School Nutrition Education Program

Web Based Meetings Etiquette -The Do’s and Don’ts

USDA Professional Standards Code 3230/4140/4130

Guests

Bart Christian, who is a nationally recognized speaker and the school nutrition industry.

We’re going to be talking about this week is virtual meetings and how to really nail a virtual one and
make it a knock out of the park success for both yourself and your team. We’re going to be really talking
about are a couple of really key areas. Some pitfalls that we see people make all the time that you might
actually not even know that you’re making and how to avoid those. Also, we’re going to be covering some
different techniques on how you can really feel confident in front of this one-eyed monster and really
conquer the video format – video meetings.

Share about what people can expect to get out of today’s meeting

The more effective we can get at it and the temperature we’re going to share today with you guys are
going to be there. It really is going to help you.

We’re all using that because I think now there’s about a half a dozen platforms for doing virtual. We’re
going to be talking about today is not going to be specific to any particular, one of those platforms or
we’re going to be talking about today are;

• Techniques that you can apply both before you jump on the meeting, to get yourself set up both
camera lighting techniques that you can utilize.
• Mental things that you can kind of take with you going into a meeting in order to get the most
out of the meeting, if you’re an attendee.
• If you’re a presenter – how to get the most out of your staff and get the most engagement and
the most takeaway because ultimately that’s what we all want.

We want an effective meeting, whether we are an attendee, we want it to be productive. The worst
thing is, and you and I were talking about this earlier, before we started this show, uh, was, you know,
having unproductive meetings and just how damaging that can actually be to both the employees and
the organization as a whole.

Well, we’ve all said in boarding meetings where we had to be there live, but when you have to take time
out of your day and you have to do something that’s unproductive at the study show that, an unproductive
meeting can actually be stressful. In this time and age, what we don’t want to do is create more stress
for our attendees.

What are some different virtual meaning etiquette things that you might actually not know that
you’re maybe breaking or making mistakes?

When you do these things, they’re pretty straight forward, but let’s talk about a couple of them. One
that I see very often is something that is actually been parodied by:

• Saturday night live
• Some other things here recently where people will get so close to the camera. It’s very easy to do
but with utilizing laptops and work from home tablets, cell phone devices being too close can
absolutely happen without even recognizing it. So, I think the first etiquette thing and the first
kind of tip to not being a distraction in your room.

Pay attention to the space in between yourself and your device that you’re working with.

Scenario; I was on a zoom meeting, not too long ago and not one that I was conducting, just one
that I was attending and a young lady had her cell phone. She was laying on the couch and had
her cell phone laying in her lap.

So, you’re looking up as you can imagine and it was 30 minutes of that. I’ve seen people that are
taking their cell phone and they’re moving it around the whole time they’re talking. And I think
that one, the big thing with camera angle is connection.

This is the way that you’re going to connect with each other. If you’re too close or you got a side shot or
you’re too high or whatever, your message that you’re trying to get across is not going to connect first of
all. As a presenter, I find that very distracting as I’m trying to impart information that I think is valuable.
Camera angle is the number one key thing. There was actually a study back in 2014 that was done that
showed that 72% of people that were a part of this particular study had self-confidence issues going into
a virtual style meeting or a video meeting.

How do we set up the perfect camera angle?

I read an article thatsaid the perfect camera angle isthe forehead, about your hairline right in here. We’ve
all seen those camera angles where you look up somebody’s nose while they’re talking, are looking down
like this.

I think that’s the happy medium. Now somebody may say, if I’m doing my cell phone or I’m doing mine,
my laptop, how am I going to set that up? Now I’ll share a little secret with you. I’ve got for a long time. I
used my webcam. I don’t mean more. I’m on my biggest laptop camera. I don’t mean more to have a
different webcam, but when I was using my camera on my PC, I’ve got a box set in under my camera that
elevates it to a level, so that it’s at a good level. It’s not sitting on my desk, looking at my notes. Is that
right?

Last night, my wife and I had a virtual meeting with our son’s teacher. And so, we were sitting
downstairs, we were in my office area where I’ve got cameras and things of that nature.

We were sitting down, whereas a little more comfortable for her and us to sit at the kitchen table,
but we wanted that same kind of good camera. So, in order to accomplish that, we just got some
books and stacks of books on top of each other. And there’s a couple of magazines actually in the
mix as well, but just so that we can get it to that right height so that we could both be in the
picture.

It was far enough away that we were both in the shot, but it was also at that eye level so that we felt
confident going into the meeting and made a good first impression because this was actually, we’ve got a
two-and-a-half-year-old is the first time we’d actually met the teacher without masks on it.

We wanted to make a good first impression. Going back to that, feeling confident in front of the camera
comment, the first key piece is feeling like you’ve got your camera ankle down because the right camera
angle not only gives you confidence, knowing that other people are viewing you in a positive manner, but
it also gives you confidence that you’re looking your best and bringing your best to the meeting.
Wearing of Business Casual Attire in Virtual Meetings

Looking your best is a big deal. I know that’s one of the things we’re going to talk about, but I did a zoom
meeting for about 50 people, with motivational talk for a business group last week I had on a nice, clean
shirt. Like I’ve got on a day. I had a pajama bottoms and bedroom shoes.

I didn’t feel my best, even though I looked good, so I followed that ended another meeting with that and
you know what I did? I put on a nice pants, I put on some dress shoes. And even though I was sitting in a
chair talking all the time, I felt good about me.

That’s just going to be different for him, for everybody, obviously. But for me, it was important for me to
– to look my best for me so that I could be my best for them. If that makes.

It might actually not be that too different for everyone because there’s been a couple of different studies
that have actually shown that the best attire to wear for virtual meetings is business casual attire.
Business casual attire is not only the most widely accepted virtual meeting attire, according to studies,
but it is also the attire that gives you the most confidence in your appearance.

In a virtual meeting setting, you’re both comfortable, but you’re also looking professional. You’re sending
the right message to the other attendees, but you also are feeling confident and prepared to receive
information from other Incendies and the presenter, because you actually got ready for the meeting.
It is important to have a connection piece.

People are not turning the camera on. People go to meetings and they’ll have a little placeholder, an
image of themselves from 25 years ago.

That looks nothing like them anymore. I can’t tell you how many meetings I’ve been to that. You just say
the person’s name. It’s really to have a connection piece. It’s really important if you want to actually
connect with attendees and get the most out of the meeting, you got to turn your camera on it.

I’ve done webinars where I don’t see anybody, I’m talking to a computer screen. I can’t, it’s just literally
me sitting there with a computer just. While they can be effective, it was not any fun. And I wasn’t, I didn’t,
I didn’t enjoy it at all to be perfectly honest. I’ve done meetings in the last couple of weeks where I operate
with two computer screens.

I don’t know about many people; a lot of people do. I know, particularly if they’re in their office and I,
when I did my zoom meeting in the last couple of times for these business groups, I had a, uh, I had my
presentation on one screen and I had another screen open with the gallery so I could see everybody’s
stuff.

What that helps me to do is it helped me to connect with them. I could do things that were engaging with
them. I could ask them to give me a thumbs up if they understood and gave me a high five, if they liked it,
or do things like that. I think that those little things help to connect.

I think it’s very valuable to be able to see people. And what I’ve done. The last meeting, I did actually, I
asked the group, if you don’t mind, could you please mute yourself and turn your cameras off? Because
I want to see everybody smiling face because that’s how I get my energy.

And like I said, I’d say 53 people complied with that. And it was great. Now people really don’t mind it. I
think that there’s just this apprehension sometime about being on camera.

That’s a great recommendation, especially for other presenters out there, District Directors, Supervisors
that are going to be doing virtual meetings, maybe virtual manager meetings back to school meetings.

I encourage you to ask your attendees, ask your employees to turn their camera on. There’s just something
that happens. It’s so easy. I know from my experience, with just being inattentive. At big, large virtual
meetings. It’s so easy to do other things while you are paying attention, quote, unquote to the presenter.
That’s giving information out.

If you have your camera on – there’s almost a level of accountability at that point where you feel like the
other person’s watching you. And if you’re not looking at them and you’re not paying attention, they’re
going to know.

If you want to get the most out of a meeting from an attendee standpoint, turn the camera on. Just be
accountable to the meeting, get the most out of the meeting and walk away. No one, like we mentioned
at the beginning wants wasted time and multitasking. We’ve talked about this before.

There is no such thing as multitasking. This is statistically impossible that now I’ve got one of my mantras.
I say every day, four or five things I said to myself, every, this I’m going to listen to others and I’m going to
be there when I’m talking to them. And one of the things and we’ve all done this, we all have conversations
with other people.

And as we’re talking to them, maybe something’s going on behind them in the background. And you sort
of shift focus from them for just a second. They’ll kind of pick up on what they’re sending come back. It’s
so easy to miss something and not in that. It takes time. I think that the multitasking thing is such a
misnomer, because what it really is, is we’re not multi-taskers, some of us are just better jugglers than up
because you can’t hold, you can only hold a single thought in your mind at a time.

So, if you’re watching a presentation and then you go on over here and you’re doing something on your
pad or something, and you’re like, You’re, you’re missing things. And if you’re in a work environment
where you’re at a staff meeting, that can mean you could really miss some pretty valuable information
that could possibly either cost you money or money, maybe cause you a little bit of a problem.

You also run into the potential issue when you have people that are trying to multitask where you’ll have
some people that receive the information and understand what you’re talking about, and they’re going
to take it into the workplace and apply it. And then you have other people, and we’ve all had thisin person
meetings where you tell the exact same thing to a group of 10 people and somehow.

Five of them understand exactly what you said and the other five it’s like, you never said anything at all.
And the same thing happens in a virtual meeting setting. And that is a lot of times can be avoided with
the elimination of the ability to do those multitasking things like go take care of your kids, take your dog
for a walk while the meeting’s going on.

You’re technically attending the meeting, but you’re not mentally attending the meeting. You may be
logged in, but you’re not actually there. One of the things I’d recommend to people to go up. I see in the
business or that kind of environment, record your zoom meetings.

Keeping on Track by Recording Zoom Meetings

It’s a simple thing to do. It’s just a button you push on most of the time apps and recorded, and that way
two things happen. You got the ability to go back and review for yourself. If there were questions, I
asked and you didn’t get a chance to get to them, and you want to be sure you go back and talk, I’ll have
offline conversations with those people, because we all know that zoom meetings is the way you have
question answers can turn it in, right.

Sometimes, you got to kind of keep it on track. Usually that opportunity, plus it gives your staff the
opportunity for you. How’s it. Somewhere like a Google drive or something like that. It gives them the
ability to go back.

Being prepared and getting the most out of the meeting.

One thing that I see people do oftentimes is they will be asked to join a meeting maybe by a supervisor
or a director and their mindset going into the meeting. I’m gonna log in, I’m going to put myself on
mute and I’m going to start doing something else. And I’m basically just going to show up, but they don’t
actually come prepared for the meeting.

What I mean by being prepared for the meeting is actually being mentally prepared to speak every
single meeting that you go into.

One trick that I have found extremely helpful is going into your virtual meeting with the expectation that
at any point in time, you could be asked to speak. Go into it with the mindset that some point you’re
going to get called on to read a segment for the entire class.

If it’s a regular staff meeting, or if there’s a particular kind of issue that’s going to be discussed during
that meeting. I love that what you just said, by the way, I love that. And the other thing is going in there
and ask yourself before the meeting starts to ask yourself this question and maybe write it down on a
piece of paper, as you’re, as you’re sitting there, what I want to get from this, what am I looking to get
from this today?

Taking notes to keep engaged

What is what I hope to gain? One of the things I found is – I’m a habitual note-taker. Why do I take so
many notes? Because it keeps me engaged.

It’s not that I really necessarily need to take, three pages of notes on a 25-minute sermon, but I do,
because it keeps me engaged in what what’s being said. And that’s a tip that I’ve learned. I’m a voracious
note-taker. Simply because it keeps me on what’s going on and prevents me from kind of wandering off
in the mist of the multitasking world.

Where to actually look in the meeting?

The last kind of tip that I see is a mistake that I see people make that I want to really kind of point out
before we move on. Cause I want to talk about a little bit more about what we really kind of initially kind
of started touching on, which is really building confidence and looking and feeling your best on camera.

The last thing that I want to point out though, is where to actually look in the meeting. Can I see this
mistake made so often – let’s just use zoom for instance, where you’ve got all the little boxes of people’s
faces? I see. So often that people are looking down at the actual boxes of people’s faces, but the camera
is actually.

So, it looks as though you’re not looking at the people. Now, this is going to feel awkward for people. It’s
going to feel strange to actually look at the camera dot on your computer or your phone. If you have an
external camera, like a webcam, that’s set up instead of looking at the faces on your screen when you’re
speaking and when you’re actually trying to connect with the other people.

Attendance. It’s very important to look at the dot and not look at their faces. It’s very tempting to look
at the faces, but from a connection standpoint, you want to look right at the camera whenever you’re
actually addressing the other attendees. You know, I think that two things that help have helped me
with that is:

1. Being aware –
2. As you got a webcam, you know, you want to be careful with the position. I’ve known a lot of
people that actually put their computer screen behind their webcam so that they can, they’re
looking at the webcam, but they could still see. But when I did my presentations last week, I did
two kinds;

a. I’m standing up talking to people. That was interesting, but I could see their faces
because I had them on a screen behind the camera. I had set my computer behind the
camera. The second kind of regional places where there were slides that slides.

I wasn’t actually on camera and that helped me a lot to get that. And we connected. I have the, I can
talk, I can see the people’s faces on another string and that helped a lot. But one thing is I find people
doing a lot of times is they’re looking at themselves like I’m there and then I have a screen beside her.
Now I’m looking at myself, to make sure I look good and make sure if going my hairs in the right place. I
think that’s one of the things people do the most is they look at themselves they’re not really looking at
the other people, they’re looking at themselves to make sure that everything’s going well. And that can
be distracting.

Going into the meeting so that we don’t have that temptation to just stare at our own picture while
we’re in the middle of a virtual meeting.

Make sure that our setup is right. We’ve already talked about camera angle, but the other one is to do
what is called mirror meditation. Mirror meditation is really ultimately it boils down to preparation and
it gives you the chance to actually look at yourself before you get on the zoom call.

• Just go to the bathroom before your meeting
• Spend about five minutes looking and making sure that you are comfortable and satisfied with
your appearance before you get on the zoom call
• So instead of justshowing up with your hair allruffled up, like you just rolled out of bed and you’ve
got that t-shirt on, that’s got the random coffee stain on the color;
• Take a little bit of time to do some self-care and make sure that you are happy with your
appearance going into the meeting that will avoid the temptation.
• Help you to avoid the temptation of just staring at your picture for the first five or 10 minutes of
the call, which ultimately is keeping you from engaging and connecting with the presenter and
the material that’s being talked about.
• Sometimes you can kind of talk yourself into a state of mind and if you spend that time, when
you’re checking yourself out, make sure everything’s in the right place.
• Just remind yourself how powerful and how effective and how strong you are and how good you
look and how you’re going to do great in this meeting and how you’re going to gain something
from it. That aura comes across in this medium.
• You can do a little mental meditation before going into the meeting. It will definitely help with
confidence going in there.

Making sure you got the right lighting.

What are a couple of tips that you’ve found that have been successful for you?

From a lighting standpoint, and then I’ll share a couple of things that I’ve seen as far as what people have
done and how we can maybe have some, maybe home remedies that don’t cost any money that will get
you the right effect. Lighting might be as something that’s worth an investment in, but if you’re talking
about the zoom meeting, you just want to look here.

• You can take a lamp, a good lamp and set in front of you.
• Don’t set it up and make sure that it’s not behind you because the LIDAR drags you out. They also
make, I mean, I’ve seen them on Amazon for as little as 10 or $15, lower circle lights that are
battery operated that you just clip on the top of your computer screen and it just gives you a little
facial light. It takes the shadow off. It makes you look; it makes you look good. There are elaborate
things that you can do, but that’s my first tip is start small.
• Find something that works and don’t think you got to spend a lot of money that you can actually
take a simple lamp.
Tips with the lamp and shading and that kind of thing to make gliding effective.
• Make sure you do not have hot bulbs in your lamps before you do this, but there are ways to what
is referred to as diffusing light.
• One of the things that you want to try and avoid with lamps is that the lamps can be fluorescent
lights or they can be tungsten light, which can oftentimes give you a different shade on your skin.
So, to avoid that kind of yellowing shade or that kind of giving yourself that goal.
• To look more natural on camera, you’ll want to diffuse the light. Take a pillowcase and set it over
top of your lamp that is sitting in front of you or somewhere in between. Ideally you would want
it to be in between you and the camera, like right in front of you now, obviously out of view of
the camera, but somewhere really close to your face.
• If you’ve got a camera, that’s more of like a can light camera that you can turn and face at you set
up. Pillowcase over top of it, diffuse that light and have it pointed right at your face so that your
whole face is illuminated. That would be an ideal setup, but you can really use any type of lamp
and diffuse that light so that you avoid that kind of yellowing or Golding of the skin, which will
make you look a little more unnatural.
• Another free tip though is, and one thing that I see people do correctly is the use of the natural
light from outside window light is wonderful. You’re natural light. You’re really not going to
artificially. Even if you spend the most money in the world on artificial lights and a full studio set
up, you are not going to be able to replace or replicate.
• The power of natural sunlight. Using that to your advantage is something that is free and very
easy to accomplish, uh, just with your setup and where you are setting up your camera. I see so
many times that people will sit in front of a big window, the window being right behind them and
they’ll set the camera right in front of them thinking that well, I’ve got great, greatlines.
• The problem though, is that you are going to be very dark. It is going to wash you out because of
how bright your background is with a simple switch and just rotate your setups so that the light,
your window light is actually behind the camera facing at you. It will aluminate your face. You will
look nice and bright on camera and you won’t have to have any type of lamp or artificial light to
get the same effect.

Lighting is very important. A good light will make you feel calmer. It’s just a fact, having poor lights, having
shades on your face where you’re going into that meeting and you look good in the bathroom where
you’ve got great lighting, and then you sit down in a dark room and you’ve got this, poorly lit area
You’re not going to look the same as you looked in the, in the bathroom when you did shoot in the
mirror, when you did your mirror meditation. So, make sure that that lighting is right and you’ll feel a
plus going into your next meeting.

Virtual Backgrounds

I see people, they got stars and the moon and they got the golden gate bridge. They got ocean behind
them. And I find that distracting and I find that I read, and then you told me and shared an article with me
that said, most people find that distracting.

If you’re an attendee, I would encourage you not to do that. If you’re a presenter, I would absolutely
encourage you not to do that because you don’t want the audience focused on your message and what
you’re telling them, although what would the information you’re sharing and not the ocean breeze and
the Palm tree flowing in the background.

There are a lot of opinions that are formulated about your choice of backgrounds, whether you like it or
not, you could feel like your virtual background is a really classy and, just an inappropriate background,
but you might have an attendee that does not feel the same way.

In some situations, it might even be offended by something that you’ve chosen and I’ve sat on zoom
calls. And this wasn’t offensive necessarily, but I’ve sat on zoom calls where people had custom virtual
backgrounds that they had created. And it was one, one person had a unicorn and a rainbow over their
head and like a shooting star.

And it was just very distracting. It honestly took my attention. More towards where did they get this
background and what all is in this background, because it’s so complex to away from who was actually
speaking and what they were speaking about. So, avoid being a distraction with your background and
the best way to do that is have a very simple, elegant background.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be a fancy background. That’s the other thing, make it something natural
in your home, plain wall, bookcase, bookshelf, a picture like you’ve got right now with some pictures on
the background, a couple of books – that’s a really clean background that is going to be very low
distraction for people.

Set Area for Virtual Meetings

That’s one of the things that I think is very important about assuming meeting is you have a set area. I
have a set area where I do my meetings. I sort of keep everything the same. And I, and so when I have to
do a meeting or do a conference call or do a zoom, there’s no stress and where I’m going to be.

That’s one of the things I’ll recommend to you guys is that I, everybody listening is that no, pick a place
and just do it at the same place. You have discipline. If it’s your bookshelves and you’re in your office, just
pick the same place. That way. There’s no stress.

As to how things are going to look, there’s no stress is that, is everything going to be, okay? Is everything
going to be a place? Because now, we live in a stressful time and, and zoom me. These can be stressful,
especially if you’re not comfortable with it. So, I compound that with, with a bad lighting or inconsistent
background or something that you feel like you got to set everything up to make your eye.

What are your presentation tips that would be more geared towards individuals that are going to be
presenting to employees or to a group of people?

• Whether it be slide, construction, mental aspects, but just some different words of wisdom that
you would impart on a presenter that has an upcoming version.
• Keep your slides simple, keep a common theme. Do your slides. If you’ve ever seen me speak my
slides or with black letters. That’s because I don’t want the audience to focus on. I’m trying to
figure out what what’s going on with my slide. I keep my slides very simple.
• Now I’m not saying that you can’t have some kind of theme to your slides, but make it something
simple. Now, make it something simple. That’s not going to be distracting to your message. No
one thought per slide. That’s been my motto for as long as I’ve been speaking. You know, if you
need, you see me talk, you’ll see a slide that will pop up.
• Fascination pops up on the screen. That’s what I talk about now. One thing about doing
presentations online is this. If you’re not a prisoner. You get really got two choices.
There are two paths;
• Put a couple of information on a slide and then, they’re reading mechanically, reading the slide.
What I learned that I actually did this in a meeting, I had slides on the screen, so they couldn’t see
me. I had them written in a screen. But I didn’t read the script. I laid it in front of me so I could
follow it. So, it could be natural in the way I was talking. You can either, you can either read it or
you cannot read it, but if you’re going to read it, you want to have it on, you don’t have simple
slides and have them dominate the screen.
• Pop up blank slots because I want people to get a chance to absorb what I just said. Now I have a
blank slide and then the next slide I’ll have the next thought. So don’t be afraid of that, because
that that’s going to be your point.

Where are you going to let your audience sort of kind of let what you just said, sink in? If you’re going to
be onscreen, if you’re going to be standing in front of a camera talking or sitting in front of the camera,
focused on camera. See that person that I’m like, I still see my family on the other side of the camera. So,
it makes it so much easier for me to try to connect with that person. You’re not talking to a group of
people you’re talking to one person is looking at you. There may be 51. Person’s looking at you, but then
you’re talking to one person.

You want to be sure you connect with that one person. It isso important to be prepared. It doesn’tmean
you have to be a speaker when you can have, you can have notes and you can, as you’re reading, you can
go over things, but don’t make bullet point things out.

If there’s things you want to talk about. If you’re reading the new USDA regulation to your staff and you
want to be sure. Well, then maybe you do want to read that word for word, but if you’re talking about the
importance of customer service or serving kids with a smile or being nice to people are, you know, the
new procedure at wherever you’re at whatever business or for your school or whatever, be prepared to
talk about that in a conversational manner.

Connection is key in this medium – more key than ever and the way you connect this by doing the
fixture positive.

I really feel like that connection piece, coming prepared, and talking from your heart – is really where you
have that connection because you can send out a memo, people can read the information for themselves.

They’re not sitting on a zoom call to listen to your read a memo. You could send that out and ask
everyone a couple of questions about what you send them and get the exact same accomplishment and
save everyone the hour long zoom meeting. If you’re planning on just reading the info, what they’re
there on that zoom call to do is to connect to feel.

• We are all together and that you are speaking directly to them because they are just sitting
there listening to you, but every single person sitting there is in a room just by themselves. And
they feel like they’re having a one-on-one conversation with the other person at the end of that
camera.
• Speak naturally, you wouldn’t have you. And I wouldn’t sit down in a room and me pull out a
piece of paper and just start reading. You wouldn’t have a one-on-one meeting in person and
just read a piece of paper to that individual.
• We all realize we’re in this together and we’re all in the same boat. We’re just in different
ways.
• Start off with joke story something to really draw people in, get their attention, and then you
move into it. And the story doesn’t have anything to do with what you’re actually going to be
talking about.
• Icebreaker to get everyone tuned in and connected. And then you go into the material you
want them to receive.

Any parting words, wisdom, advice?

This sums up a lot of people’s attitudes about zooms and being in front of the camera. It says courage is
being scared of them, but silent that be anyway.

I liked being in front of people. I liked talking to groups. I hated this immediately, but I realized that out if
I was going to be able to connect and communicate and still do what I love.

Touching people with information that I had to get used to it. I’ve watched a lot of people blossom at
doing this, and I just encourage you just to do it, just like the Nike thing.

Just do it and you’ll get used to it. And I promise, and you’ll probably find that you might actually
enjoy it.

School Nutrition Education Program

A New Era for School Nutrition Education

USDA Professional Standards Code 2640/3230/4120/4140

Guests

Bart Christian- who is a nationally recognized speaker and the school nutrition industry.

Jocelyn Karbo- NSLP Content Specialist

What are a couple of key components of training that school food service programs should consider for
back-to-school this year?

Well first, I don’t think I had a chance to thank you guys. So, thank you for having me on today. I’m so
happy to share about training. Ultimately, we had to switch our way of delivering training in a matter of
weeks. So, we usually have 5,6, 700 people come to our conference at the beginning of the summer, and
we had to switch to an online platform. We learned a lot and I hope I can at least help share a couple of
those things with you today.

• First of all, we have to remember all the things that are changing around us, rules, regulations,
this, that, and the other. Training is the same, whether we’re training in-person face-to-face or
remotely, it’s the same concept.
• You have to know your audience, get to know who they are, what do they need, where are they
coming from, what kind of person they are, what do they have available to them?
• I’ll talk a little bit more about that one in a minute, but also playing an engaging experience. We
have all set-on training, in-person and virtual, and when they’re not engaging, we get nothing
from them.
• And then last, make sure that our folks can apply the knowledge to their job. So, I’m going to dive
into those a little bit deeper, but I want to make a point of virtual training versus online training.
Virtual training is typically a training that has a person live presenting. We’re doing virtual training.
We might be recording it as a webinar, but we are facilitating it live.
• Online training is on demand. Online on demand, meaning I could wake up at four o’clock in the
morning, get on, take an online class. It’s self-paced for the participant and they are doing the
training on their own.
• They can go start to finish without interacting with an instructor or a facilitator at all. When we’re
looking at those two words, that’s kind of how we distinguish between virtual and online. Our
audience is special and specific. We have to know; do they have internet access? Do they have a
computer? Are they going to be taking their training on their cell phones, because when it’s really
small, they’re not going to see handouts very well.
• Over-communicate. Help them feel comfortable with this new environment. Send them how-to
videos or maybe a user guide to the platform you’re going to use in advance, so they can feel
comfortable with; where are we going? What are we doing? Where do I click? What should I do?
What time is it being held? So over communicate those things.
• That’s another benefit of the online piece. You can give them all of that in advance. You don’t
have to take training time to do that. You can give it to them before you even start.
• Then consider recording a virtual welcome. You don’t have to do a welcome face-to-face, you
could record that in advance. It could be from your superintendent, or maybe your child nutrition
director, a special guest speaker, the mayor, anyone who might be able to welcome them back to
the school year, sounds like a really fun opportunity you could do in advance.
• You could also tailor those to your individual audiences, your elementary schools, your middle
schools and your face schools. Knowing your audience is still whether you’re virtual or face-toface.
• Claiming that engaging experience, making sure that you’re thinking about activities. If we’re faceto-face, we’re going to do a tabletop activity. Well, some virtual platforms, you can break folks
into breakout sessions, so they could still have that opportunity build in polls, quizzes, Q and A,
let them utilize what it would run them for the technology to help it stay engaging. I always
prerecorded the main thing, keeping the main thing going to be the same, whether I say it in
person or I record it in advance.
• I always write a script, and make sure I have every detail that I want them to capture, and I record
that in advance. The cool thing is that when I’m playing, I can answer the Q and A in the chat at
the same time, because it’s already being recorded and they’re just watching the recording. They
don’t know what’s recorded. They think I’m presenting right in front of them. That’s definitely a
tip that I would definitely share.
• Have a co host. Do not pretend that you can manage all of the things by yourself. There’s screens,
there’s speakers, there’s people like doing their hair or eating something. You need a friend who
commutes with them, turns their video off, and answers questions for you. You also want to give
folks a phone number. If they’re having a problem, they don’t want to go through some guide to
figure out how to get their sound working. Have a co host, have them help you with attendance.
All those things behind the scenes, you do not have to do it yourself.
• It’s gotta be useful. It’s not knowledge. It’s kinda like food, right? It’s not nutrition until it’s in their
body. Well, it’s not as successful training unless they’re applying that knowledge to their job. So,
we really want to make sure that what we’re providing for training, they can take back and use.

But during your training, you want them to practice a little piece of that, so they build the
confidence to be able to implement it on the job. That’s really knowing your audience again, back
to the first one.

What type of advice can you give to folks that might not feel comfortable behind or in front of a camera,
and maybe don’t feel comfortable doing all of these virtual meetings? What would you recommend to
them to really help them to gain that confidence, so that they can actually properly convey the
important information that they need to get to their employees without forgetting something or
stressing out and just missing the mark because of the structure of the meeting that they’re trying to
hold?

● Just practice, start with your pre-meetings. We’re going to have this conference. So, the meeting
that I’m going to have with my team is going to be on the platform that we’re going to deliver for
the conference itself.
● I’ll build a poll and I’ll have them respond to it. We went through all the settings together because
we wanted to make sure that if someone took a session with me or with one of my colleagues,
that it looked and felt the same. We were using the same tools and mechanisms.
● So, I say, just start, play with it, practice it. There’s so many YouTube videos. There’s so many
different how-to’s or helps, but you really don’t learn it for me anyway, until I do it.
● Those meetings, we have a run through, a practice. We don’t talk about everything that we’re
going to say during the session, but you still have to plan. As you’re building your agenda, you
realize, it’s going to take 15 to 20 seconds of a delay in order for my audience to hear the question
and then respond to the poll. So, I didn’t build in that buffer time the first time and I got to the
end, and I’m like, how am I running out of time? Because I didn’t actually do all of the questions
in the poll during my run-through.
● I say, just start, trust your team, ask them; has anybody used this? My other tip would be to talk
to your technology department. We had people at a help desk as our backup who were familiar
with the platform, but what are they using for their meetings? What are the teachers using? What
platform are they using? Is it my first off team? Is it zoom? Is it go-to-meetings because they’re
doing the same things, they might be able to sit in or be your co host for the first time. I’ve had
that question too. I’m from a small district. I’m a one man show. I don’t have one co host. Call me,
there’s people who will be willing to help you, at least walk through it the first time. So just start.
Well, I know for me, because I’ve been working on a lot. They’ve been developing some things, working
on things, because virtual training is going to be big. Actually, the interesting thing is I actually do have
three districts. I’m going to speak out, live over the next two weeks. But they’re going to be broken into
small groups. So instead of doing one big group, I’m going to do three small groups over the course of the
day.

But as far as my tip for people as kind of a one man show in a lot of ways on different things, I use
PowerPoint a lot. I develop my presentation. I have a secondary monitor, so that I can have my camera, I
can see the stuff, but then I have a secondary monitor, so I can follow my PowerPoint. It’s very different
when you step, I thought I’m blessed in that. I thought I’m pretty good in front of a big group, but when
it’s just me and this one-eyed monster here, and you’ve got to talk to it and there’s nobody else here,
practices everything because it takes practice to get engaging and not a mechanical in what you’re doing,
and I think that your practice is everything. And there are a lot of districts out there that are one-man
shows or one-woman shows that they may find themselves having to kind of do-that, because there’s only
one Jocelyn, you can’t help everybody. So, that practice is going to be the key and getting for me with the
tool.

Which one of the tools have you found to be the simplest to work with, Zoom, Go-to-meeting, Microsoft
teams, which have you found to be the most user-friendly simplest to work with?
We use zoom a lot, but again, it’s because that’s what my technology department said, we have a pro
account and we’re using zoom for our other programs in the building. I think that’s where you have to
start because when others are using it, it’s supported and then they have more information, they’re better
able to equip and help you with that.

Start there, but I’ve used all of them now at this point; Go-to-Meetings, Microsoft teams, but Microsoft
teams are a lot easier if everyone’s within the network, but a lot of my school districts aren’t on Microsoft
teams. It’s a whole different ball game, I think they’re all similar.

I think the key is what do you want out of the platform? You have to start with, do I want my participants
to be able to ask me questions during the session, okay, which ones do that? Do I want to share a
document during the session? Originally, a lot of them didn’t have the ability for you to upload or share a
document. You had to do it offline. Well, now you have it, but you can add on these things, so figure out
what you want the session to include and how you want to interact with your audience. That will help
your kind of we-out-the-ones that aren’t going to work for you.
What do you find to be the most successful link for a virtual or online training in the industry that we’re
in?

Really good question, because I was caught off guard by this one as well. So, same thing I started with my
team. What do you all suggest? We have an internal team that works with teachers and principals and
superintendents, and they’re developing training for their audiences, and they said from their expertise,
their side of things, development, what can the human mind handle? They said, take your training. So,
whatever it is, six-hour face-to-face cuts it in half. That’s three hours, now cut it in half again. So, the
maximum amount of time that I should spend on that six-hour content face-to-face should be 90 minutes
virtual. How is that even possible? It was definitely a switch in mentality, but remember what I said earlier,
they can get a lot of the content in advance.

● You can send them a prerecorded video; you can send them things to get them all on the same
page. So, when you are face-to-face, you can get to the nitty gritty, meaty stuff of scenarios and
discussion. You don’t need to cover the basic stuff because they’ve already either received that
or you can do it in a series.
● So, the first one would be kind of an intro 101, and then you could break it up into 90-minute
chunks, and I heard this for face-to-face to you, especially with activities, our mind can’t handle
what our seat can’t take.
• If you are sitting, sitting, sitting, it’s not getting absorbed in your mind, because you’re just
thinking about, “Oh, I should’ve gone to the restroom”, “I have all these other things to do that
sort of thing”. So, take your tape content, cut in half, cut in half again, and that should be your
maximum.
What type of info specifically do you suggest asking your employees to give you feedback on, and what
do you recommend doing with that information after the meeting?
I’ve been working the last year plus on food production records. Same concept, why do we look back at a
food production record to play in what we’re doing in the future? So, if we’re never looking at the data
that we’re collecting during a past training, we’re just taking a shot in the dark for what we’re planning for
a future training.
• If we collect none of this training, even throughout the training, we can gauge where the audience
is and tailor what we’re doing in that next 15-minute chunk.
• If we do our end of course evaluation, which we’re required to do, we have to prove that learning
occurs in our sessions. That is part of training, whether that’s a poll or a post-test or whatever, we
can take that data and say, “Okay, they’ve got down the mail pattern.” They know the mail
pattern. They’re great at the mail pattern. They’re getting a little hung up on offering versus
serving breakfast in the classroom, or they need help with that kiosk, serving the grab and go at
the kiosk.
• Now we know what we can tailor and very specifically customize our next training for. So, if we
never looked back at it, for one we’re going to lose credibility and trust with their audience,
because they’re going to say, “I told you that last time and you didn’t do anything about it”.
• I think it’s really important that we, A, ask, but then B, follow through on listening.
• They also might ask a specific question that they’re expecting to hear back from you on. So yes, it
creates a little bit of follow up work for us, but then we can have that one-on-one conversation
and touch base with someone so that we can clear the water quickly.
• So, I say you definitely have to calendar a debrief. For the day after, or maybe two days after, and
I do this with my whole team. We review the follow-up together. If it’s my training I do with the
co-hosts because I don’t want to miss anything.
• And then I also think it’s important that we give that feedback or the response, or we’re going to
have that in the next month’s training communication, pretty quickly after the training itself, but
you have to calendar it or you won’t have time. It’ll just sit there and then you’ll get the alert that
the recording’s going to expire. Do you want to keep it? I do download, which is another key.
• Once you are doing a virtual training, hit record, so-and-so didn’t meet, make it to the meeting.
You can send it to them, orientation, you can give it to folks down the line. They all get the same
information.

How do you feel about that as far as being a tracking component of being something to verify that the
learning has actually occurred?

So again, it’s going to fall back on what your district hasfor their own professional standards, policies, and
procedures. For the state level, we recognize it as long as they document it, if they don’t document it, it
didn’t happen. How they document it is how it happened. I would still need a way for them to sign an
attendance log, some way to initial or verify. Yes, I’m this person, and I did this training and then we have
professional standards once they fill out our evaluation. After the fact, then they can download their
certificate from our website, others just give it to them locally. So, it all falls back on how you’re
documenting it, but yes, it counts. They were there. They did it, but they have to document it according
to what their local and state regulations have.

What types of training tools and ongoing resources are available for folks that might be working strictly
off of Wi-Fi in their home?

Yeah, it’s a good question. I have several that we use in our area locally, but again I would just ask the
district, what are they using? A lot of things are compatible with mobile devices, tablets, laptops, desktops,
they’re all pretty much converting to some point to be usable on any of those.

• Regardless, I think you just keep making it available. The software itself should be able to meet
the need.
• We’ve used Google surveys, forms, We have Typeform, Menti-meter, Kahoot. There’s so many
that are being developed. The apps that are out there, you see more and more being developed
all the time.
• I even ask your group, ask your audience, ask your team; What have you used? What do you like?

What should we try?

What other types of training are available online that would be appropriate for a school nutrition
professional that would maybe spice things up, give a little bit of variety outside of the ICN, SNA, and
some of the state department training that are provided?

Just like apps, there’s so many avenues for training. I can get so down a rabbit trail of this, to that, to the
next, to a mean to a video, to a YouTube. I have to reel myself back and say, what am I trying to find?

What am I looking for? Is it motivational? Is it safety and sanitation? Is it health and wellness? Like what
is the goal that I’m trying to look for?

● And then actually what I start with is my social network of my colleagues, my Instagram, Facebook,
all of my social networks, and I asked that group first, “Hey, I’m looking for a motivational
something to start back to school, or I’m looking for a safety and sanitation tool that I can share.”
That’s professionally put together to show happy wear face masks.
● So, I start with that group on the first day and I look at it, it’s kind of like when someone posts,
what books are you reading or any good books lately? It narrows down all of those things to like
a few that I can research because I don’t have time to find all of the new ones or all of the latest
and greatest, but I trust my group. I trust my network, my fellow dietician friends, my fellow child
nutrition friends. I started there honestly.

Are there any other groups that people should be aware of to really tap into other people’s expertise
and the resources that other districts might have available?

Are you familiar with the school meals that rocks the tips page? I know that Hayes is pretty active there.
Dieticians of course, I’m in the school nutrition practice group with the academy of nutrition dietetics, and
they have a whole another platform that they have Q and A and questions and all of that sort of thing.
They’re just dieticians that work in schools and there’s nearly 800 of them across the country. They’re very
helpful in that world, and that’s my world really.

● I am attending a Bob pike training coming up in the next couple of weeks. So that’s all on virtual
training and we kind of did a co-operative to join. It’s not content specific, It’s the education world
of delivering material online or virtually.
● The other thing is, this is funny. I was meeting with the child nutrition director cohort last week
and they are looking for ways to pay their staff when they may have less meals to prepare. What
are we going to pay them to do? How are we going to make use of that time? And training is one
way that you can do that, and there’s so many resources out there for them to do that.
● So, don’t forget about training. If there’s a downturn in participation or you have people who have
another hour, I think that their end of their day, or they’ve prepped everything, make a training
plan as a backup for them to have ready that they can use as a checklist to keep them fully trained
on your staff.

Do you see the old version model of training that we became so accustomed to being in person and
group style meetings, do you see us ever going back to something like that, or do you think that the
future is really developing and finding these online training resources for a new era of training?

Absolutely, we will go back for some skills training. You cannot teach knife skills without putting a knife in
someone’s hand and coaching them on how to properly cut onions. Those skills, hands-on coaching
scenarios that you need to do give immediate feedback on, they are going to return, they might be in
smaller groups. One of my directors is going to go to each kitchen individually to do back to school training
this year. What a lovely idea. They’re going to go to their kitchen to do the training and I absolutely do
think we will go back face-to-face with those types of things. The benefit is we’re going to nail this virtual
side of things too, and we’re going to be able to do both.

We’re going to hybrid. We’re going to say, counting and claiming it can really be done online. They can
drag and drop. We can test their knowledge. Boom. When we’re face-to-face, we’re going to get some
team building hands-on, down and dirty, like nitty gritty stuff that we couldn’t achieve in that virtual world.

● So, I think it’ll start with, what can we tackle virtually. Check, check, check, and then, “Oh, what
did we kind of miss the mark on? What are we falling behind on that we need skills or hands-on
or face to face training”, and then we’ll return to that, we’ll fill in the gap there. That’s my personal
opinion.
● I think that we have such a great opportunity. The people that are willing to do this is to get better
at the virtual training and get better at this face-to-face type of atmosphere and I’ll be on a
computer, because I see so many trainings in other organizations, I don’t name any, but they’re
child nutritional organizations that offer training, but there are long PowerPoint slides and there’s
no way you literally talk to, I said, thank you said in one of your answers that people tune out and
eight to 12 minutes, uh, yeah. And maybe shorter than that for some of those.
● I think that if we can get better at this, that we can tackle a lot of things virtually and have better
tools for outside of just the PowerPoint outside of just the presentations that people are used to
doing, because I think this is going to be here for at least year and maybe a year and a half. Because
live training will come back, I have no doubt that it will come back. I’ll be standing on the stage in
front of a group sooner or later again, I know that, but in the interim, I have to get better at this
new medium, which is just going to make me better and offer better tools to school nutrition
groups. And I think that’s the challenge, are you willing to really get better at it? Are you just going
to sit and read?
● Please check the dates, please make sure that the information that you’re sharing is current. If
you’re going to share a video, watch the video in its entirety. We learned so much about just
playing like Pandora. We wanted to have music going so that when our participants joined, they
would hear music and know that their audio was working.

17 ways to get your cortisol levels down
Stress is a sneaky thing. It can curl up inside you and grow like a Chia Pet until all the sprouts have grown out of control. Sometimes stress can manifest into physical symptoms, like temporary hives, one-day headaches, or long-term weight gain.

One simple way to deal is to let your body and mind reset. Take a nap — yep, even 10 minutes of napping can help. If you were sleepy in the first place, the lack of sleep can make it harder to manage stress.

Super quick de-stressing tips
1. Force a laugh or smile — even anticipating a laugh can boost your mood.
2. Make sure you’re not slouching, as posture can affect mood.
3. Mute all your phone notifications.
4. Give someone a hug.
5. Play a happy song, or a song that makes you happy.

But when the stress boilover happens during work, at a party, or in public, dropping everything to take a nap is definitely not a good look. And in these situations, stress can also join teams with anxiety, leaving you figuring out how to rein in both emotions.

Fortunately, there are tips and tricks that can help you get your cortisol levels down. If you need quick tips to keep your heart beating at a more manageable rate, read our ways to calm stress in five minutes or less.

If you’re noticing a bigger pattern, you might want to take a longer breather with our 30-minute tips or speak to a professional to get to the root of the problem.

Ways to calm stress in 5 minutes or less
1. Acknowledge your stress
Acknowledging your stress can really help lift the weight off your shoulders and could be the first step to asking for help.

Facing stress is an opportunity to reset your mind and take it as a chance to grow. Researchers say the brain is rewiring and trying to learn from the experience so you can handle it differently next time.

So, think about whether the stress is a buildup or related to a more long-term issue. If it’s unrelated to anything, maybe it’s a sign your mind and body need a break.

If it’s tied to a more long-term problem you can’t immediately solve, try another one of the quick relaxer tips below.

2. Chew gum
Chewing is a great form of stress reduction. If you have gum on hand, particularly scented gum, chew it for at least three minutes. One study of 101 adults found that people who chewed gum during work had a lower stress response.

But don’t chew half-heartedly! It may be useful to take out your pent-up energy on the gum. Another study found that vigorous chewing was required in order to achieve stress relief.

3. Drink stress-reducing tea
There are several supplements that can help reduce stress and anxiety, but many of these supplements may take a few weeks or months of intake before they have an effect.

However, the act of stepping away for a few minutes to make tea can be therapeutic. So why not also make a stress-relieving drink? Studies show that 1 gram of apple cider vinegarTrusted Source may take over 95 minutes to work its magic, while matcha may take up to an hour to workTrusted Source.

Although tea takes at least an hour to take effect, just stepping away can signal to your body to relax. Plus, once you get back to your desk, time may fly faster than you know it.

4. Inhale essential oils or invest in a diffuser
Inhaling essential oils may help calm the mindTrusted Source in times of stress, anxiety, and insomnia. This popular technique, also known as aromatherapy, focuses on using scents to holistically balance your physical, emotional, and psychological health.

Popular essential oils for combating stress include:

• lavender
• rose
• vetiver
• bergamot
• Roman chamomile
• frankincense
• sandalwood
• ylang ylang
• orange blossom

Choose scents based on your personal preferences. For example, if the smell of peppermint reminds you of holidays at home, use peppermint.

To use essential oils for stress, apply three dropsTrusted Source onto a cotton pad and breathe it in deeply 10 times. You can also purchase a diffuser for your room or desk so that it constantly releases a calming scent.

5. Stretch at your desk
It’s incredibly important to take breaks during work, even when you feel like there’s a rush to get your task at hand done. For the times when you can’t leave your desk, you can still stretch while sitting for five minutes without intervention.

Stretching can also help with discomfort and work-related pain or injuriesTrusted Source. The simplest stretch you can do is the upper body and arm stretch. To do this:

Clasp your hands together and push upward with your palms facing the sky.

1. Stretch and hold the pose for 10 seconds.
2. Try twisting your torso left and right for 30 seconds, then repeat.
3. For a full-body stretch, check out our desk-stretch routine.

Bonus tips for stress

• Keep a stress ball at your desk. Sometimes all you need to do is physically exert all the pent-up energy.
• Have a tactile item for comfort. This can be a crystal or a piece of velvet.
• Buy a massage pad for your chair. This $45 purchase is the most affordable, worth-it purchase for momentary relaxation. Sometimes stress can be a result of back strain or pain. Or your tensed muscles might be increasing your stress. A back massager with heated functionality will help you relax even more.

Ways to calm stress in 10 minutes
6. Go for a walk
Exercise or walking is a great way to manage stress. First, it lets you escape the situation. Second, exercise helps your body release endorphins, the neurotransmitters that make you feel warm and fuzzy.

Think of walking as moving meditation. A few laps around the block can help you forget previous tension and relax so you return to the situation calmer and more collected.

7. Memorize this yoga routine
Yoga isn’t only a popular exercise for all ages, but it’s also gaining traction for decreasing stress, anxiety, and depression. According to researchTrusted Source, yoga interrupts stress by producing an effect that’s opposite to your flight-or-fight response.

A simple routine can help lower your cortisol levels, blood pressure, and heart rate. One of our favorite 10-minute routines is by Tara Stiles. This routine starts off with a lot of relaxing swaying.

8. Intervene with mindfulness-based, stress-reduction techniques
Sometimes stress can cause your mind to spiral and lead you down an unnecessary rabbit hole of negative thoughts. One way of escaping that spiral is to anchor yourself to the present and focus on immediate results you can achieve.

Methods to try

• Close your eyes and scan your body. Pay attention to the physical feelings.
• Sit and meditate by paying attention to your breathing, sounds, sensations, and emotions. Let them pass through you.
• Change up your movement by taking a walk or standing up.
• Give full attention to small daily activities, like drinking water, eating, or brushing your teeth.
• 9. Write it out
  Writing out what you’re stressed about can help you focus your thoughts on the positive or ways to tackle the negative.

  Write away the stress

• Try the “so what?” exercise by asking yourself that question until it reveals something about yourself.
• See if there are any exceptions to your concerns.
• Keep a journal to track your changes and learnings.
• Treat this method of writing it out as a way of taking notes without derailing your whole workday. Keep these notes on hand to check for patterns to see if there’s a deeper reason behind your stress.

  10. Try 4-7-8 breathing
  The 4-7-8 breathing method is a powerful trick that gives your body an extra boost of oxygen. Deep breathing is an effective way to reduce anxiety, stress, and depression.

  To do this: Place the tip of your tongue against the roof of your mouth and keep it there the whole time.

  One cycle of 4-7-8 breathing
  1. Part your lips slightly and exhale with a whooshing sound through your mouth.
  2. Close your lips and inhale silently through your nose. Count to 4 in your head.
  3. Hold your breath for 7 seconds.
  4. Exhale (with a whoosh sound) for 8 seconds.
  5. Practice this mindlessly to let your brain relax.
  6. Complete this cycle for four full breaths.

  11. Try the emotional freedom technique (EFT)
  Tapping or psychological acupressure is a specific methodic sequence that involves tapping specific meridian points (areas of the body energy flows through, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine) and reciting setup phrases that will help you acknowledge issues and accept yourself.

  EFT in 5 steps
  1. Identify what’s causing you stress.
  2. On a scale of 0 to 10, write down how intense the issue is (10 being the highest).
  3. Create a setup phrase that addresses your problem. For example: “Even though I’m stressed about this deadline, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
  4. Tap on the nine meridian points (eyebrow, side of eyes, under eyes, under nose, chin, start of collarbone, and under arm) seven times. Repeat the phrase with each tapping point. Do this sequence two to three times.
  5. Rate your final intensity to see if your stress level has gone down to 0. If not, repeat.

  12. Talk in third person
  Whether it’s to yourself or with a friend, talking can help tamper down your stress level. Yep, talking to yourself or about yourself in third person is a form of exerting self-control over negative emotions.

  According to researchers, “Referring to yourself in the third person leads people to think about themselves more similar to how they think about others.”

  Doing this can help you distance yourself from the experience or situation. The best part, though? It requires less effort.

  Ways to calm stress in 30 minutes
  13. Exercise, but make it daily
  We mentioned walking earlier, but that was just a quick break. Routine exercise can help improve the way your body uses oxygen and helps you cope with stressful situations. The benefits of working out build up over time. You may be able to feel the difference as you stick to your routine.

  It’s recommended to exercise for at least 30 minutes five days a week.

  14. Take a hot bath
  The answer to washing away a day of stress may be in your bathroom. Hot water is known to help release endorphins and increase blood flow to the skin. Warm baths can also:

  improve breathing

• reduce risk of heart attack
• lower blood pressure
• burn calories
• For folks living with chronic pain, hot baths can also help keep muscles loose and reduce flare-ups.
• 15. Clean your room, desk, or dishes
  Besides removing clutter and giving you relief from a crowded space, cleaning is an effective mindfulness practice. One study found that students who washed dishes had greater states of mindfulness and positive moods.

  If you don’t have time to clean thoroughly, take this opportunity to organize items or tackle one cleaning task at a time. For example, if you have a load of laundry, use each washing and drying load to time your breaks.

  16. Talk it out or reach out to friends
  Social support is an extremely effective way to relieve stress. Ask a friend or co-worker to be a sounding board as you talk out your issues.

  Sometimes the case with stressful situations is that you’re trying to find a problem or a connection when there isn’t one. An outsider’s perspective may help you see that more clearly.

  If you do reach out to a friend, be sure to express your thanks and return the favor when they ask!

  17. Foam roll out the tension
  Sometimes stress becomes physical: It can cause your muscles to knot up. These knots can develop in very specific places that build up over time, which you can’t easily unwind via exercise or self-massage. That’s where foam rolling steps in.

  Foam rolling adds pressure to those trigger points, signaling your body to increase blood flow to that area and for your muscle to relax. A full-body routine can help promote relaxation the way getting a massage will.

  Take a closer look at your stress
  Invisible stress is real, and it can build up into chronic stress. Sometimes we don’t notice it because it’s been there the whole time, like a freckle or mole. However, changing freckles or moles are something you want to take the time to check out, right? Stress is the same.

  If you notice a change in your patience or find yourself more easily triggered by slight noises or simple mistakes, consider whether you need to take a break and calm your mind, or if there’s something bigger at play. Chronic stress can increase your risk for other mental health concerns, such as depression and anxiety.

  If these strategies aren’t giving you tools to cope, try seeking help from a professional.

If your name is God then you don’t need a mentor or a coach. For everyone else, let’s explore the value of having one.

First some definitions. A “coach” operates with an organizational focus and is often assigned to you. Coaches have a vested interest in seeing you improve specific skills and interpersonal relationships that pertain to your job and how it impacts your company’s bottom line. A coach’s conversations with you tend to be more directive because the task of a coach is to help you achieve explicit workplace objectives and goals.

On the other hand, a “mentor” is someone whom you select to help you grow in various aspects of your life, with an agenda set by you. The purpose of a mentor is to help you where you want the help. In this role, a mentor acts more as a concerned questioner, facilitating your discovery of how you can improve upon the various issues you want to address.

Although the terms are often used interchangeably (which sometimes causes some misunderstandings), you can see there is a difference between coaches and mentors. One is selected by you to help you focus on your individual growth, the other is someone at work who is charged with helping you meet organizational goals. Unfortunately, many people today call themselves coaches when in fact they are serving in the role of mentor (and even I am guilty of that).

In reality, it probably doesn’t matter which term you use, so long as you have a clear understanding of the purpose of the relationship. But, as I said, a lack of clarification can cause misunderstandings.

For example, a colleague and I were once asked to meet with the leadership team of a high-profile company that manufactures golfing equipment. They wanted some outside help to relieve tension on their leadership team. At the initial meeting, a senior vice president arrogantly sat back and challenged us with “So – what do you guys know about golf clubs?”

Without batting an eye, my colleague responded: “Nothing. And we don’t want to know anything about golf clubs. We’re experts in workplace relationships.”

Even recently, someone came to me after opening her own business (for privacy’s sake, let’s say she sells widgets), and a relative of hers questioned her action, saying “what does he know about widgets?”

Within these examples, you can see the misunderstandings that arise. But either way, let’s examine just a few of the benefits of having someone as a confidant, be it a mentor or a coach.

1. You’ll gain clarity because you’re often too close to a situation to see it clearly. Stated another way, it’s pretty hard to see your nose, isn’t it? It is literally too close to your eyes, and you just can’t see it very well. Having another person sharing his or her insights about your situation gives you an outside perspective on how to improve. If you are motivated to make improvements, you’ll place a lot of value on that person’s perspective.

2. You’ll have accountability. Without accountability we usually end up with a lot of blame or a lot of excuses as to why things don’t get done. Sometimes both. Because it’s difficult to be accountable to yourself (not impossible, but quite difficult), having someone to whom you’re accountable helps you stay on track with those non-urgent but important actions which lead to personal and professional growth.

3. Coaching and mentoring is custom tailored to you. You can attend all the workshops and read all the books you want, but they will forever be delivered to a bell curve of people, not specifically to you. In coaching and mentoring relationships, everything is customized to meet your individual needs. You’ll have to become vulnerable to some degree and acknowledge your human frailty, but a good mentor or coach is looking for ways you can capitalize on your strengths while compensating for your weaknesses. That just can’t happen in a workshop the same way it can during a one-on-one.

It doesn’t matter whether you decide that a coach or a mentor is better for you, but I recommend you get one. Even after 22 years performing the role myself, I follow my own advice. I have a “coach/mentor” to whom I remain accountable for my personal & professional development. For the record, I’m not fishing for more coaching clients. I just believe that unless you’re God, everyone has room to grow.

As a final word, be sure that whoever you select as a mentor/coach is qualified for the job. This field does not require a license, so anyone can say they’re a coach. Also make sure you don’t get forced into any long-term contract, and be confident that whoever you work with maintains your best interests at heart. Investing in yourself always brings worthwhile returns.

Budgeting, Training and the Future of Serving
With Bart Christian, who is a nationally recognized speaker and the school nutrition industry, and Lindsay Aguilar, (Registered Dietitian and certified School Nutrition Specialist), the Administrative Dietitian for the Tucson Unified School District Food Services Department.

 

School Nutrition Education Program
Budgeting, Training and the Future of Serving
USDA Professional Standards Code 3330/4120/4130/4150/4160

Guest

Bart Christian, who is a nationally recognized speaker and the school nutrition industry.

Lindsay Aguilar, (Registered Dietitian and certified School Nutrition Specialist) is the Administrative
Dietitian for the Tucson Unified School District Food Services Department. Lindsay has worked at TUSD
for 15 years where she coordinates the operations of the various federal meal programs throughout the
district and nutrition support services. Lindsay has a passion for child nutrition and the importance of
the role of nutrition in education. Lindsay is an active member of the School Nutrition Association and is
on the executive board for the state association.

How are meals delivered during this time of the pandemic at Tucson Unified?

On March 25th, we started a grab and go meals with 12 bus routes. We had 114 bus stops across our
district. Our district is 225 square miles so we covered pretty much the majority of the Tucson area.
We did breakfast and lunch at one time. Our buses were out between 10 and about one 30 every day.
Actually, today is our last day of those bus routes for the school closure. We served just over 330,000
meals over the last two months to our community and then we’re starting back up on Tuesday with a
revised summer bus route.

What types of variety of meals and items are you serving in those grabs and go lunches?

We have been utilizing all pre-packaged items. Fortunately for us at TUSD, we had incorporated a 50- 50
model over the past two years so we’re doing half of our entree house-made assembled items that
we’re making in our kitchens and then we have incorporated pre-packaged items.

We were fortunate that we had quite an inventory. We have a centralized warehouse, so we have been
able to run our program off of the five-week inventory that we had coming into the school closure. We
weren’t in the situation that I know a lot of districts across the country really had challenges getting prepackaged items.

Some of the meal items that we served were:

– bean and cheese burritos
– corn dogs
– cheeseburger
– sliders
– grilled cheese

For breakfast items we’ve had:

– cereal and bagels
– pancakes
– French toast
– fruit cups
– fruit and vegetable juice

What are the issues that you faced while delivering the lunches and what was your alternative plan to get around with it?

We’ve had issues with shelf stable milk. We had a large inventory of that but it ran out on the first
month so we had to transition to regular fluid milk. Hand sanitizers for buses has been a challenge too
so we had to get creative with that and kind of figure out an alternative plan for that.

What is the response of the parents to the fact that you’re bringing food to kids and the type of food
they are receiving?

It actually has been overwhelmingly positive. The kids are making cards and pictures. They draw chalk
on the bus stops and sidewalks to thank us and hanging signs. We even had one family that made Tshirts for the staff on the bus that said “TUSD United”

I think the other factor is just the people are coming together and collaborating with our transportation
department and our school safety. We have school safety officers and crossing guards that have been
out at our bus stops. So just working together with those departments in such a positive way and
impacting our students and community has been my favorite part. It has been really nice for our staff as
well to get the positive recognition that they often, unfortunately don’t receive.

We are going to be elevated as an industry to such a high level in the district, because we’ve really
demonstrated that the food service workers are essential because they’re the ones who have had to go
to work.

That school lunch often has those misconceptions parents being exposed to the food has also been a
really positive kind of unintended consequence from this whole thing. Every day they take their kids to
the meal stops and they’ve been actually able to see the food they are getting. The food quality and just
being able to see the types of items that we offer to their kids has been a really nice impact for
everybody to experience.

What exactly are you doing with your staff to keep them engaged and keep them motivated on a on a
daily basis?

We have just over 200 site employees in our school kitchen. We obviously didn’t need all 200 on the bus
routes and in our central kitchen facility so we did a weekly rotation. We had groups of people assigned
to our kitchen to do our meal bag assembly. Then we had the groups of staff assigned to the buses for
the meal distribution. Then we had group of staff rotating to work from home.

We utilize this time to really educate and train our employees. The School Food Handler program has
been amazing to our staff to utilize during this time and keep them working and having meaningful work
and they did a lot of professional development training.

We also utilize some other areas too. The Institute of child nutrition was something I assigned staff from
home just which they actually got a lot of feedback that they really enjoyed. Learning about the history
of the National School Lunch Program and then our district actually has a historical section on their
website.

I had them review all the history of TUSD and I was surprised that a lot of our staff reached out to me
just saying that they really enjoy learning about the history of the district and they do a really good job
with some stories and archives and stuff like that.

It’s been a combination of food safety training, nutrition education, and utilizing our state department
website as well for some of their trainings on the meal pattern. So, I think, a lot of people have provided
some feedback to me that they actually enjoy being able to have time to expand their knowledge in all
of these areas and take time to do the trainings and do all the trainings on school food handler where
we had them complete every single training that was on the website.

Thank you all for having those great resources available for us to use.

Advantages training your employees during the pandemic:

– Your staff is going to come back more knowledgeable and educated.
– They are going to feel better about themselves and the job they do.
– They are getting more exposed to areas they normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to learn
about.
– It has given the staff a lot more confidence in technology.

What type of other technology related tools have you been implementing over the past couple of
months?

– Powerpoint Presentations
– Zoom
– Office 365

In the past years, pre COVID and everything, did you all do any type of professional development day to start the year off for new hires and what do you anticipate for the future for getting those new
hires up to speed on where they need to be to start the year off?

Normally in the past, they would go through the district onboarding process. So that will stay the same,
but there is some training that they receive at the district level. Once they start with us, the new hire
training was just all in the kitchens.

We had a training guide that was completed for staff to go over certain areas and sign-off. So, I think
from this and the feedback that we’re getting from our staff, looking at the training guides, we’ll
definitely look to incorporate some more interactive and some technology pieces.

I think that videos are something that I’m definitely interested in. Either putting together some trainings
that include more realistic videos of our kitchen set up is and those areas to make it a more effective
piece for our new hires because we don’t have the capacity to bring them all in at one time. We were
hiring so many people throughout the year and they all started at different times. So we rely on our sites
to complete that training an utilizing some of the technology for that is definitely something that we’re 6
planning to incorporate.

What do you see happening for those large beginning of the year meeting for either managers or
segments of the team, or maybe the whole team?

I do definitely think there’s going to be some changes to our typical bringing everybody in and large
groups, especially for the start the school. We need to keep groups to 10 and under, and those things at
this moment in time, but even moving beyond that, I do think that from this whole experience, we’ve
definitely captured that you can still have effective meetings and interactions.

I do think it is important and our staff really loves to be around each other. So, I think that human
contact is definitely needed. But I do think that we can do some hybrids and smaller groups and utilize
the technology to have more consistent interaction with our employees instead of waiting to do it once
every quarter, we could set up things more consistently.

I definitely think this is going to change our staff meetings and trainings and in-services moving forward
for sure and across our district as well. I think it’s something that it’s going to be forever changed from
this entire experience. I also think that it’s going to be okay and positive things are going to come out of
this. I think we’ll all be stronger and have even better and more efficient programs because of things
that we’re going to have to do.

This is also going to allow us to be more connected with our staff much more consistently because now
we’ve got ways that we can utilize that can keep them feeling more supported and connected with our
central office.

What types of things are you considering this year when you’re looking at budgeting for this upcoming year?

I think at this point, the priority for us right now is just devising our reopening plans.
I’m working on kind of the four phases, we’re working on traditional students coming back a hybrid
model of some in their schools, some online. Preparing if, hope to God, we don’t have to go back to
schools being closed in online only. Then also the fourth option, because of some of the protocols and
changes that our district is going to have to make potentially that some kids would be scheduled in the
school building on certain days and at home others.

So, we have these kind of four phases that we’re working on reopening plans for. I think that the
challenging part and my concern of course is, what is this going to do to our participation levels? And if
we do have a percentage or population of our students that are going to be, online from home, how can
we still encapsulate providing meals to those students?

Of course, there would have to be regulation changes at the USDA level and our state level and I think
not just for food service but for education in general. I think participation levels are certainly definitely a
priority concern and then of course our budget, as far as our revenue loss, that we’ve experienced
tremendous losses as we conclude this physical year and how can we recover from that going into next
year. What are our school enrollment numbers going to look like? We’re in the process of doing a big
district survey as far as our family is going to be ready to come back in the fall and check if they feel
safe?

We’re working on building our real pain plants to ensure the safety of all students and staff as a priority.
With how these last few months has been running, decisions are going to have to be made quickly. You
can plan for all of this and then it’s going to be the constant change and adjustments that we’re going to
have to make.

At this point I think that’s the hardest budgeting piece is because there are just so many unknowns in
meal service models. What kind of service are we going to have? Is it going to be in the classroom?
Fortunately for us, we’ve been running a kind of a self-serve model at our elementary is where we
package all of the food.

So that is to our advantage. I think coming into this with the kind of grab and go concept is probably
going to be most likely what we’re going to have to do because of the physical distancing and those
protocols that we’re going to have to have in place, but is that going to be in the cafeteria or in the
classroom?

With a lot of the procedures that you’ve obviously been forced to implement over the past couple of
months, do you see any of those procedures carrying into this upcoming school year?

At this point, our district does have a face covering protocol in place for employees that are going to be
serving the public or working around others. So, I think, first the start of school, that’s something that
I’m preparing for . Ourstaff is most likely going to need to wear masks when they’re interacting with
students and other staff. I certainly think some additional cleaning protocols, disinfecting and taking
those extra precautionary steps that we’ve been doing is something that we’re going to continue to
carry forward. I think also just kind of looking at how some of our kitchens are set up and spacing and
some of our flow is something that you needs to be reviewed because if we are going to have to be
mindful of still trying to distance ourselves when we can, even if it’s not always possible, but that’s
something that we did during this time for our centralized kitchen facility.

We actually had place markers set with tape on the ground at our assembly lines to keep everybody six
feet apart and really trying to be mindful of that in our operations. So, I think, looking at our footprints
in our kitchens and what adjustments might we be able to make is something that we’re going to be
working on.

Any last pieces of advice that you have for foodservice workers and nutrition professionals across the country that you’d like to share as they’re planning and heading into this upcoming school year?

Make sure that you’re connecting with your district. I know oftentimes food service departments can
sometimes struggle to be connected and involved with the entire district, but certainly that’s something
that’s essential right now.

We need to connect with operations and all the different protocols and procedures that are going to be
implemented. If that’s not something that normally happens in your district, I think just making sure that
you’re inserting yourself in those conversations and not just hanging back because you can’t do it alone.
You need the support of your district and working with other departments and making sure everybody’s
on the same page. I think that’s something very important and some of those partnerships, connections,
I think is essential as we move forward into these challenging and unknown times.

Use the word, insert yourself into the conversation. I think there’s some districts where you’re going to
have to force yourself into the conversation. I think sometimes child nutrition feels like we’re on the
outside looking in. Not only can we not do it alone, they can’t do it without us. And that’s just the truth.
Whatever your level is, make that clear to your district, because you’ve been blessed to have a very
steady hand in what’s going on in your district in Tucson.

I just hope that the supervisor, the superintendents, the principals, these board members that have not
always given voice to child nutrition will realize exactly how vital and important these true superheroes
are on the job they do every single day.

I think this whole experience has helped most districts to get that well overdue acknowledgment. We
need to just ride that way for sure. Make sure you don’t pull back. Just keep the momentum going for
sure.

Making Tech Part Of The Team
With Bart Christian, who is a nationally recognized speaker and the school nutrition industry.

 

School Nutrition Education Program
Making Tech Part Of The Team
USDA Professional Standards Code 3430/4120/4140/4150

Guest

Bart Christian – who is a nationally recognized speaker and the school nutrition industry.

Technology is something that’s coming like a freight train and we really need to look at different tools
and different tricks that we can really use on a daily basis to help our staff understand the value, the
“why” behind what we’re trying to accomplish and really embrace the change that we’re implementing.

There are three constants in life according to Steven Covey.

1. Change
2. Choice
3. Principles

These things never change and what does change is your choice about how you’re going to address
change. One thing we don’t realize in this society is that we’ve been through tremendous amount of
change.

Baby boomers are viewed as being change resistance. We have seen the most change than anybody in
any generation in the history. When we first started listening to music, it was records on 8-track tapes
but now, we have everything on our phones.

There are just so many things out there that the things we’re going through now, as far as technology
goes, should honestly be easy for most of us. It’s not so much simpler than it’s ever been but it’s
different than it’s ever been.

Introducing a new technology program to School Food Handlers

Staffs tend to refuse the use of new technology program because of their fear that it might be hard to
use. That’s why ease of use is really important especially these days. In a lot of ways, some people also
just shut the idea of learning how to use it not just because they cannot learn it but they just decide that
they don’t want to learn it.

We had one meeting with a district before where the cafeteria staff were unwilling to kind of embrace
the program wholeheartedly. So we asked them how many of them has smartphones and everyone held
a smartphone. We asked them to take a picture of something and send it to us with some random text.
All of a sudden there were tons of messages coming. What they didn’t realized is that they did much
more steps taking the picture and sending them to us than the steps that they would take to take and
complete a lesson inside our program.

With this exercise we were able to prove that some people are really just not interested to learn these
things no matter how easy it is. We can conclude that it is more of a willingness to accept is versus the
ability to accept it.

However, with what we are going through right now, remote learning and access to that kind of
information is only going to be found through technology. We believe that this is going to be the
triggering factor that’s going to push people to the edge in a lot of ways.

How do we get our staff to embrace change and accept it as something that is of value?

• Understand that there are differences in generations. Millennials look to thinks for utility and it
is easier for them to accept new changes like this but older generations would still need to
understand why they need to do it and they have to know the usefulness of it.
• You have to know what approach you will use each of your staff because everybody looks at
learning differently. One thing may work with one person but it may not work with the other.
• Accept the different ways people accept information. Change your perspective on how you talk
to your staff depending on who you are talking to.
• Regardless of what technology you are implementing, your employees have to have time to
adjust to the content before you introduce the item.
• Allow your employees to process that this change is going to happen.
• Constantly remind them of the change.
• Group your employees based on their knowledge about technology to prevent missing the mark
when introducing it to them.

Engagement – occupy somebody’s attention

Activation – to cause them to do something that causes them to make something fully operational.

Key things about different generations

• If you want to engage in activation, for boomers, you need to grant them a responsibility that is
equal to their afford. You have to give them mentoring opportunities.
• When you’re engaged in activating the generation X group, you want to be sure you have clear
goals and expectations. They respond very well to goals. They allow for creativity.
• Younger people understand the need for each other. They understand that in order to be
successful, they need to feed off the knowledge and expertise to the other generations.
• Let younger people teach older generations. This will empower them and make them better
members of the group.

“Someone is sitting under the shade of a tree because someone planted it a long time ago.”
—-Warren Buffett

The world has changed so much in the last 10 years and it will change even more in the next 50 years.
However, people tend to resist change. They resist if they don’t understand why there is a need to
change. The most important thing is to explain the “why” first before explaining the “how”.

Strategies and tools for directors in introducing technology to your staff

• First of all, make sure that the company provided materials are easy to understand.
• It would be better to create videos with detailed and step by step instructions to help your staff
get familiarized
• Make sure that your tools are user friendly
• Build a training program that meets all your staff in the middle
• Focus on having accessibility to training on multiple platforms
• Show your staff you are 100% committed and not just doing it for the sake of compliance
• Set goals and follow up with them to make sure that they actually did it
• People will value training if they realize that you value training.
• Adjust your approach depending on different types of learners
• Produce different types of learning materials that would fit different types of learners
• Develop a culture instead of doing it for compliance

2 things that you need to have when introducing a new staff education program

1. Quiz component – to verify understanding
2. Consistent follow ups

“You can get everything in life you want, if you’ll just help enough other people get what they want.”
– Zig Ziglar

People basically want to feel relatively safe, secured and productive. If you can show people how that
they can be more productive, they can be secure in their job and they can be safe at what they’re doing
then you can get so much out of them. Our strength relies on our differences and not in our similarities.
If we only embrace those differences and figure out how we can do it all together.
Start by listening to your staff and understand where they are coming from instead of just going there
and laying all that they need to do.

Preparing Your Team For Post Covid-19 Changes
With Bart Christian, who is a nationally recognized speaker and the school nutrition industry and Joe Pettit, supervisor for Charleston County School District in South Carolina.

 

School Nutrition Education Program
Preparing Your Team For Post Covid-19 Changes
USDA Professional Standards Code 3440/3450/4140/4110

Guest
Bart Christian, who is a nationally recognized speaker and the school nutrition industry.

Joe Pettit, with more than 20 years of experience as a leader in the food and beverage industry with six
of those being in school nutrition, Joe brings experience and passion to see others at their best. His current
role is a supervisor for Charleston County school district in South Carolina. He also owns a professional
speaking business where he presents leadership and motivational talks for corporations, state national
SNA conferences and school assemblies.

What are the Five Ps and how can we apply them?

1. Plan
2. Prepare
3. Plant the seed
4. Practice
5. Produce

Ways to have a positive mindset during tough times

• It is never too late to start a plan.
• Have a vision of what you dream about.
• That way you can start to build that hope and that dream.
• Remember that if they can do it, you can do it as well.

E plus R equals O by Jack Canfield

• It means Events plus your Response/actions equals your Outcome.
• We can’t control the events that will happen to us. We can influence the outcome but what you
can have control of is how you will respond to the events.

The School Nutrition Industry in the next years

• If the school nutrition department’s vision is great service, great food, great quality and great
customer service even before this pandemic happened, it will still be their vision.
• We can use the momentum that has been created through this pandemic.
• We have been catapulted into national spotlight in a positive way so that’s going to allow us to
have a little bit more say
• When the city starts to set out more definition on how school administrators should do it, we
will adapt and make sure we deliver the best possible product and service.

New norms in serving food to the kids

• Some schools may encourage students to go outside of their classroom to get the food but
would impose rules to abide with social distancing.
• Grab and go meals will be practiced more.
• We will see more kiosks and carts.

How can directors/site managers keep their staff believe in and motivated and inspired to do what
they do if the kids are not in front of them every day?

• Always remember your ultimate goal, why are you here and why are you doing this—for the
students. They are the heart of our work
• Continue to make your staff feel that what they are doing is important.
• Appreciation is a huge factor that we’re going to have to connect with.
• Show them that you care about them as a person and not just on a boss – employee level.

What are the tools/resources they can use to continue the communication with their staff and keeping them motivated during this time of the pandemic?

• There are other different companies providing the same service but Zoom is definitely getting all
the love right now.
• You cannot cut training right now instead, double down on that to make sure your team feels
like you care and so they can feel that you’re pouring into them.
• This is also an opportunity for the school districts to get a new culture of training that will allow
all the stop to continue getting the training that they need even during this pandemic.
• Motivation wears out if there are no reinforcement so this situation will allow directors to build
a new culture of training.
• School districts usually hold a big district meeting at the beginning of the year but today, that
can be hard given the situation. You can instead use a different approach with the same fee, you
can get the keynote speaker to do an ongoing training (ex, three months) and it would be more
valuable rather than doing it in one go.
• We need to embrace the technology that, that we’re now being forced to use on a regular basis.

How to get your staff on board for this?

• Patience – We have to understand that they are not going to accept this change overnight so we
have to be patience of the process.
• Persistent – Constantly remind.
• Politeness – You can accomplish so much if you practice politeness. Tell them what they need to
do but be polite about it. Make sure to deliver news in a polite way even if it is bad news.
• Make them understand why they need to do it. They may not agree with you but if they know
the reason behind it, most of the time it works.

How do I start my goal setting?

• Ride your goals
• Know the WHYs
• Have your first and second step
• Have accountability
• Write down your goals

Resources and Tips for a Changing Food Service Industry
With Bart Christian, who is a nationally recognized speaker and the school nutrition industry.

 

School Nutrition Education Program
Resources and Tips for a Changing Food Service Industry
USDA Professional Standards Code 3220/3230/3450

Guest

Bart Christian

Mr. Bart Christian, who is a nationally recognized speaker and the school nutrition industry.

With over 25 years of experience in the School Nutrition, what are you seeing in the industry now?

• During this time, we make sure children get fed and ensure that the school nutrition department
are being appreciated for their hard work
• The industry has evolved the way they serve the kids; they have gone couple of different ways to
service such as driving ups service for parents to collect meals.
• In some districts, meals are separated for the day and for the week in order to maintain social
distancing
• Some people providing frozen food in that meal, something providing hot food that has to be
cooled and then reheated.
• They also are doing school bus delivery where they’re loading food up onto school, school buses,
same kind of process. Sometimes it’s a day. Sometimes it’s multiple days a work that’s worth of
food for a family and they’re delivering it either. By the bus route, either site the site or in most
cases, central location and letting people know that that’s where they’ll be. And then people come
to pick up their meals. Those two procedures are things that have never been done before in
schools.
• It’s been very critical that that schools follow proper procedures. One thing, a lot of people don’t
know about schools is that they’re very procedure driven. There is a literally a procedure for
everything that happens in a school nutrition environment from door to door.
• Since there are no SOPs, what we did with our team was, we put together standard operating
procedures for both those things drive up service and bus delivery. We also developed some
inserts and some things like that to go into the meals so that parents know the proper procedures
for handling it.

Tell us a little bit more about Non-congregate and Feeding Standard Operating Procedures

We put together a free complete document about the SOPs so it can be accessible to all. We have made
them available to the country.

• Bus services, delivering and receiving boxes – making sure that we properly handle cardboard
containers so that people will be aware of not being infected by the virus
• Cleaning a school bus – we make sure that they are safe and clean. So, we provided a COVID-19
approved germicide instructions that can be used
• Proper hand washing, proper personal hygiene

What’s the new hand-washing procedure in a bus environment?

My recommendation in our procedure is to wash your hands thoroughly before you start put gloves on
and wear gloves all the time. That way you’re not touching anything and if your gloves become soiled or
they become torn, or you need to change them, if you have an opportunity to wash your hands at a stop
or side, then obviously do that.

We’re encouraging people to take the gloves off as gently as they can. One simple technique is you’ve got
gloves on your hands, gloves get soiled and you want to take them off, you can take your thumb and run
it up the inside of the glove and just kind of peel the glove off that way as best you can.
And then drop that glove in the trash and take your clean ungloved hand and do the same thing with this,
this try and only to touch the inside of the glove and then discard that glove. We’re dealing with a lot of
new territory and the goal is to keep things as safe as possible when you’re handling food.

About the Free Food Safety Training

We’ve added on our food handler solutions website which is the Free Food Safety Training. It’s a full 8-
chapter course to help people that are not familiar with food safety. It’s a wonderful tool, especially
even if you just break off some chapters, you can kind of skip around and take chapters independently
of each other, but it’s a really great tool to take or to pass along to folks that maybe just aren’t familiar
with food safety and want to give them a little bit of something to get them started.

Can you share with us the best way to do meal inserts?

We started the inserts out from a basic information, so people would know how to handle their food, but
as the complexity of service became more evident and these complex meals were being served and the
complex meal basically means something that needs this cooked then needs to be and then reheat it and
then serve. That’s basically the definition and people are also adding in frozen food.

• There are districts that are providing a week’s worth of food, and they’re basically given such as a
hamburger, frozen hamburger patties, frozen chicken patties but there were no instructions for
parents.
• When a school district starts adding and providing that kind of food, it opens things up where they
not to provide parents with good solid instruction so that they could say that they did. So, we
developed the insert that has that handling of hot food from, in terms of getting it.
• Not eating it immediately and then putting it at the right temperature, cooling at the right time
and then reheating. We did the same thing with cold food, and then we added the frozen food in
so that people would know that the frozen food needs to be taken immediately and putting them
in the freezer.

Milk and Meal Packs

• A lot of schools are serving milk and USDA is a mandatory meal pack and that milk also needs to
be cool. There is some shelf stable milk that’s being used, but by and large, it’s not shelfs stable.
It’s the kind of milk that you have in school all the time. It’s a cooler and the kids get it as they’re
getting their lunch. So, we did that and we also developed an insert for basic home food safety.

Flyers and Inserts

• Not only does it apply to the meals, but you’ve also got a flyer you can insert in that it gives them
some tips for their own safety at their house when they’re preparing their own meals. This was a
pretty good thing because we had a lot of people take advantage of both of those tools.
• We’ve gotten a lot of feedback from people who have used it. The interesting thing about the
inserts is that they’re editable. If your district is doing something a little different, they’re all word
documents, and you can edit them to fit your circumstances since you want to do that.

Labeled Templates

• We also put together some labeled templates, you can actually print labels off penal off and
stick them on a bag of a meal or whatever. Their language is in Spanish and in English. There are
also some DIY items about how to create your mask and how best to wear them.

COVID-19 Resources

• There are a lot of different resources on the COVID-19 resource page which, can be found at
school food handler right in the navigation area, just by clicking on COVID-19 resources at the
top of the page.
• The key thing about a mask is this, you can make your own, and that’s exactly what’s on there is
instructions to do that. Care’s very important so we added a resource on there about taking care
of your mask how do you care for it, how do you wash it etc.

Getting back to life with a new ‘normal’ setting, what can food service operations do in ensuring
parents and making customers feel safe again?

Two things —food safety in a child nutrition environment and school environment has never been an
issue. Food has always been safe there. They’ve got a painstaking measure to be sure that food is safe.
Personal hygiene in a child nutrition environment has always been taught. They’ve always done that and
they do a really good job. Make sure people wash their hands and follow guidelines.

Wearing Gloves & Masks

• Once the schools reopened, people will just take those extra measures to make sure that they
wear gloves all the time. If there are kids in the environment, gloves are not necessarily a required
for every single task in the kitchen outside of serving the food. I would say that in every
opportunity – you may find yourself wearing masks in school.

Maintaining Social Distancing

• As you’re handing things to people, be careful about touching people and maintain social
distancing. I believe this is something you can do now, as far as the restaurants go, same things.

I think you’re going to find servers that are going to be wearing masks that are going to be
wearing gloves. You’re going to have people in that kitchen that are going to be doing the same
thing.

Wearing appropriate uniforms

• Wearing things that they’re accustomed to wear is also a way towards making the customers
feel safe. Whether the customers come back quickly or not, it’s going to really depend on two
things. It’s gonna depend on how the restaurant and school markets the safety precautions
they’re taking.

Scheduling by Batch for Lunch

• Also, how quickly customers are still comfortable. I think the more your social distance in a
restaurant, I think you’re going to find people that are going to a 300-table restaurant or 300-
person capacity restaurant, maybe go to a 7,500, 125 people because it’s a spread the distancing.
You’re probably going to see schools go into more of a longer lunch period so that they can bring
kids instead of bringing the whole cafeteria in at one time. Maybe bring them in, in thirds. So, it’s
spread them out around the cafeteria.

“There’s going to be a lot of things to be different, food safety is not really going to be the issue. It’s
going to be the context.”

Do you feel like there’s any negative repercussions to just taking extra precautions?

No, there’s not. Caution can be overboard, but in this case, I think caution is not a bad practice, especially
follow you’re buying yourself into that grouping of people that have been more susceptible.

I watched people in the grocery store. I’ve noticed people taking things off the shelf, handling bugs and
he’s normal, and then reaching up and adjusting their mask or they got the mask down over their mouth
so they can breathe through their nose. It’s been shown that people that wear masks tend to touch their
face. As much as 75% more than they do when they don’t have it. What begs the question is that – can we
be disciplined more wearing a mask? As if you are touching things and then you’re texting your face and
you’re moving your mask around, it kind of defeats the purpose of them because of that.

Cause the mask is to protect what it’s to protect me from you. If you’re wearing them, you’re getting
somebody else or airborne and that can be an issue. So, I think it wouldn’t have restaurants, food, service,
operations, those kinds of things.

When they’re wearing masks, that it’s very important that they practice the proper use of the mask. Cause
they’re adjusting it. Then it’s going to just tell the confidence of customers that won’t cause problems.

As a nationally recognized speaker, what can people do in these times to stay positive in mind and just keep up a good outlook towards the future in life?

• Stop watching the news. You can try watching to maybe every two or three or even four days,
things aren’t gonna change that much. You’ll notice an immediate improvement attitude.
• Take time to watch your favorite movie or have some me-time. If you want to watch television,
watch something funny or watch some, watch something exciting, or action packed. Read your
favorite books, and listen to your favorite music and talk to yourself. Reflect. Ponder!
• Don’t constantly tell yourself that this is the end. We’re going to be in this. It’s not going to get
better because none of that’s true. It’s not the end is it is going to get better. Timing may be an
issue, but it will get better. There’s no reason to think it won’t.
• Be kind to people. There’s so much stress in this world right now that when I go into a store.
When you walk into a store, smile and say good morning. You can ask the staff how are they
doing or to people more or less. You will feel in your heart that people need that.
• You need to know that you are not alone. For some people, they’ve been trapped in their house.
Some of them for weeks and they feel alone. I think if you can share a kind word and a smile with
somebody, it reminds them that they’re not alone. I’ve seen a big response when I do that. That’s
the key thing – a production line guard. You get what you give you reap what you said. And if you,
if you want to get positivity and good back from people, you must give it.