How you can benchmark your wages and benefits

Added on 23 August 2021

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How you can benchmark your wages and benefits

Do you ever wonder how you stand up to others in the business when it comes to how much you're paying your employees? At a time of rapidly emerging segments of the controlled-environment industry, knowledge like this can be invaluable.

There is at least one resource that can help. United Fresh Produce Association recently published the sixth edition of its Produce Industry Compensation & Benefits Report, an expansive research resource that assists industry employers in understanding critical compensation benchmarks.

Developed with input from the United Fresh Finance & Business Management Council, the report includes compensation and benefits data from fresh produce companies for more than 30 full-time positions in the areas of Sales & Marketing; Production/Operations; Food Safety & Quality; Administrative; Finance & Accounting; and Executives. The survey informing the report was open to any U.S. or Canadian-based produce employer, including grower-shippers, brokers, wholesaler-distributors, importers, exporters, and fresh-cut processors.

For 2021, the report also includes a section of pandemic-related data covering a variety of topics including changes in compensation, staffing, company policies, and more.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many businesses of all sizes throughout the fresh produce industry to readdress how they manage and compensate their workforce," says United Fresh's Finance & Business Management Council Chairman Mike McGee, Vice President, Finance, L&M Companies. "It has never been more critical to utilize data for informed decisions on effective hiring, compensation, and operations."

Again this year, all companies who purchase the report will have access to a secure and searchable online portal, which will allow users to drill deeper into the data and better tailor criteria to match individual corporate needs. Data is reported by ownership type (family, private, public); type of business; produce sales volume; number of full-time employees; and geography. Custom reports can then be downloaded as an Excel or a PDF document. Data from the report originated from a survey administered by expert research firm Industry Insights.

For questions, contact Miriam Wolk, United Fresh's Vice President of Member Services at mwolk@unitedfresh.org or 202-303-3410.