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9. WORKPLACE
Ben & Jerry’s has always aimed for a workplace and a culture that fits with our brand: fun, quirky, laid-back and light-hearted. At our corporate headquarters, for example, you’ll see dozens of dogs sharing office space with their owners, and our children are always welcome to visit for the day. At all of the sites where Ben & Jerry’s employees work, most workplace policies and programs are administered by Unilever, our parent company. Our Vermont locations also have some programs that are unique to Ben & Jerry’s. Here’s a look at some of the notable events, programs, and outcomes related to our workplace in 2009:
Notable in 2009 Despite the recession that affected the U.S. economy in 2009 – and a down year for Ben & Jerry’s business – we were able to avoid lay-offs and continue to hire for key positions. We avoided any increase in the premiums paid by employees for health care and other benefits. Unilever did make the decision to freeze merit increases in 2009 for some work levels, which affected some employees at Ben & Jerry’s. In addition travel, consulting, and other budgets were cut in 2009 to weather the storm. We closed three company-owned scoop shops in 2009 as a part of a multi-year plan to focus our efforts on fewer stores in this area of our business. Two stores were affected in New York City, at our Times Square and Rockefeller Center locations, as well as one store in Williston, Vermont. Altogether, these changes impacted twenty Ben & Jerry’s scoop shop employees. The Rockefeller Center store was sold to an existing franchisee. Several staff from the company-owned store were re-hired by the franchisee, including Nilima Das, a champion cake-maker and Ben & Jerry’s employee in New York City for 16 years.
Livable Wage Policy Ben & Jerry’s is committed to paying all of its full-time workers a livable wage. In 1995 we established a method for calculating a livable wage benchmark for Vermont. We defined it as the starting wage for a single person that will sustain a reasonable quality of life to include expenditures for housing, utilities, out-of-pocket health care, transportation, food, recreation, savings, taxes, and miscellaneous expenses. Since then, we’ve adjusted this livable wage annually to ensure the relative value is sustained in today’s marketplace. Ben & Jerry’s livable wage benchmark for 2009 was $13.94 per hour, up from $13.25 in 2008. This hourly wage translates to $28,995 per year. For comparison, at year-end 2009, the minimum wage in Vermont was $8.06/hr ($16,765/yr) and the national minimum wage was $7.25/hr ($15,080/yr).
Bonus Plan Some Ben & Jerry’s employees are eligible for bonuses over and above their base pay. In 2009, Ben & Jerry’s salaried exempt employees and salaried non-exempt employees were eligible for the Variable Pay Award (VPA) plan which allocates bonuses based on the Company’s financial performance and the individual’s progress on goals and targets. Ben & Jerry’s company-owned scoop shop managers received variable pay through Ben & Jerry’s Retail Incentive Plan which is based on criteria relating to scoop shop sales and performance criteria. Ben & Jerry’s full-time hourly manufacturing employees were not eligible for bonuses and incentives in 2009, as the “Keys to Enterprise” (KTE) plan of previous years was discontinued. These employees were eligible for merit increases in 2009, and many did receive them based on individual performance.
Benefits Ben & Jerry’s maintains a competitive benefits package that includes many unique elements. In addition to standard benefits such as health care and 401(k) matching, all Ben & Jerry’s employees have access to company-sponsored memberships to local fitness centers; health screening programs; personal financial planning advice; on-site lactation rooms; an on-site Company store that stocks a wide variety of Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever products; and a hybrid car purchase incentive, among other things. Employees at the Central Support office in South Burlington also have an onsite workout facility and a dog-friendly workplace.
New in 2009 For the first time in many years, we held an all-site Company meeting in July 2009, bringing together about 400 employees from the Waterbury and St. Albans manufacturing plants and the South Burlington Central Office. Under a giant tent in the backyard of our Waterbury plant, we heard updates on the business and enjoyed an afternoon of games. To top things off, Chef Robert Irvine with the TV show Dinner Impossible provided us all with an extraordinary dinner inspired by Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavors. We partnered with some of our favorite socially-responsible peer companies here in Vermont to create a Shared Employee Discount Program in 2009. Ben & Jerry’s employees were given a wallet card for discounts at Gardener’s Supply, Lake Champlain Chocolates, Green Mountain Coffee, and Vermont Teddy Bear Company. We completed a review of all the cleaning products we use in our Central office to make sure we’re using the most environmentally friendly choices. We’re now using all Green Seal approved products, such as floor cleaners, restroom sanitizers and soaps, and glass cleaners. With the help of Efficiency Vermont and Omega Electric, we completed an energy audit of our office space in South Burlington. The audit led us to replace some ballasts, bulbs, old lighting fixtures, ice cream freezers, a refrigerator and a stove with more energy-efficient options.
Wellness Programs We expanded our Wellness programs at our Central office. We had about 35 percent participation in 2009, including onsite fitness classes (yoga, pilates, etc.), a community garden, our own Biggest Loser contest, and use of our onsite workout gym. We received a ‘Gold Standard’ award from the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness in 2009 for the third year in a row.
Diversity Ben & Jerry’s is an equal opportunity employer that values diversity in our workforce. One element of this commitment is our application of Affirmative Action practices to look for conspicuous imbalances in our workforce and take positive steps to correct them. Affirmative Action plans focus on equality in hiring, training, promoting, and compensating employees. We are proud to say that this year (and once again), for the facilities where we completed analysis, there were no areas in which statistically significant adverse impact to our employees were found.
Within our South Burlington office, Ben & Jerry’s donates office space to DREAM, a nonprofit mentoring organization that matches college mentors with young people growing up in subsidized housing projects. DREAM staff have access to shared resources in the building, including the employee kitchen, meeting rooms, and photocopiers. We’re glad to be able to support their innovative and important work.
Training In collaboration with our parent company Unilever, we organized a number of employee training programs in 2009 hosted at Ben & Jerry’s facilities, including workshops on Teamworking and Influencing Skills.
Employee Recognition Programs Ben & Jerry’s recognizes and celebrates outstanding employee contributions to our business through the following programs:
Communication and Company Meetings The company holds a wide variety of meetings for the purposes of communicating important information to employees, including:
Participation in community action projects is one of the most enjoyable ways for Ben & Jerry’s employees to give back to the community. For more information on group community service activities that were sponsored by Ben & Jerry’s, see our section on Giving Back. Our employees are also encouraged and supported in taking on individual service projects. South Burlington employees have a paid community service benefit that totals 40 hours per year. Salaried workers in our manufacturing plants who do community service on their personal time are given up to three days of additional community service time off on a day-for-day matching basis. For the record, here are the totals of individual volunteer hours contributed under these programs:
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