Management can make or break the success of organizations responding to product recall notices. Poor management jeopardizes an entire organization; effective management leads to much better outcomes.
In the latest in our series about the effect of product recalls on different departments, we look at management, which plays the most important role of all in product recall planning.
What Do Managers Do During a Product Recall?
Powerful leadership is a must when dealing with recall notices. Think of a good manager like a captain of a ship. She’s the person in charge. She provides support and direction. Without her guidance, the ship could sink.
When the government issues a recall notice, managers are the first port of call. Whether a product manager or senior manager, these professionals delegate tasks and make quick decisions to save a business from lawsuits and penalties. Managers remove faulty materials and products from supply chains and retail outlets to protect lives.
Managers can’t handle product recalls alone. They need the help of a legal, operations, production, marketing, and public relations team, as well as many other people across several departments. But, ultimately, a manager has the final say on the decisions an organization makes in response to product recalls.
A Day in the Life of a Manager During a Product Recall Crisis
This is a typical day in the life of a manager during a product recall:
9 a.m. A manager checks her email. She receives a message from a supplier. It turns out that the FDA issued a recall notice for a product her organization uses frequently. The product is faulty and could put lives at risk. The manager checks the information with the FDA, and it’s true. She needs to act quickly.
The manager spends the rest of the morning contacting other departments, suppliers, partners, and retailers. However, the process is cumbersome. She lacks the right digital tools to communicate recall information effectively.
Noon. The manager asks the manufacturing department to cease the production of the affected product. By this time, the product has been in production for another 3 hours because the manager had to check information with other departments.
With the right digital tools, the manager could have communicated recall information in a quicker timeframe and taken action sooner.
3 p.m. The manager has spent the afternoon checking batch numbers and item numbers. She wants to find out which retailers in the supply chain have received affected products. However, ineffective and outdated software makes it almost impossible to find this information. Instead, she has to contact each retailer directly, which takes hours.
5 p.m. The manager works with the public relations department on a media release that explains the situation. She wants the recall information to reach as many people as possible.
The manager should have created a media release much earlier in the day but she was busy with other tasks.
How Managers Solve Challenges With Product Recalls
As you can see, managers have lots of responsibilities for product recall management. There are lots of tasks to fulfill, and this can take many hours. Highlighted in the example above, without recall planning exercises, ineffective digital tools slow down a manager’s recall response times considerably. This can put people at risk and increase the chances of lawsuits and fines.
What’s the solution? To speed up product recall responses, managers should invest in mock recall planning, training, and exercises to test their digital tools.
The FDA recently published its final guidance outlining steps companies should take to develop recall policies and procedures that include training, planning, exercises, and record-keeping to help significantly reduce the time a recalled product remains on the market.
The FDA guidance describes an array of best practices for creating, testing, and executing a recall plan. Because of the FDA’s heightened expectations, along with the greater risk and complexity involved in today’s recalls, training – including regular mock recall exercises – has become an essential part of the recall preparation process.
It is imperative that your organization plan, train and test for a product recall. This includes developing and executing mock recalls at least twice a year.
Final Word
Managers are, perhaps, the most important people in the recall process. They make life-changing decisions that affect the entire organization. Effective managers, however, need the right recall plan they can rely on. Otherwise, they could make mistakes, cause harm to the public, and receive penalties for recall response non-compliance. Mock recall planning provides managers with the tools they require to conduct a successful recall.
Looking to test your product recall readiness? MockRecalls will help create and/or test your recall program. Click here to learn more or call us!
Learn more about each department’s role during a product recall