Building a Diverse and Dedicated Workforce

Our Commitment

At Pilgrim’s, diversity is one of our greatest strengths, and we know that the success of our company depends on the collective skills, backgrounds and experiences of our team members. By treating our team members with dignity and respect, and by promoting diversity and inclusion, we strive to create a trusting and productive workplace.

Our Management Approach

Due to the various locations of our facilities and our large, diverse workforce composed of team members of different ethnicities and national origins, Pilgrim’s faces unique communication challenges. As many as 15 different languages are spoken at any one facility. To ensure team members can express themselves and understand key messages, we provide company materials in various languages and dialects. This includes team member information such as benefits, safety instructions and new hire and continuous training materials. In addition, each facility offers unlimited access to Language Lines, which provides more than 200 languages and creates immediate access to clear communication across our facilities. Pilgrim’s works diligently to accommodate the cultural needs of all our team members. We encourage all facilities to evaluate the effectiveness of their accommodations and to identify the best approaches to address their unique situations.

We also empower our facilities to work within their communities to recruit and retain diverse team members. Our local teams aim to hire and employ a workforce that represents the communities where they live and work. As a contractor to the U.S. federal government, we maintain affirmative action programs to implement our Equal Employment Opportunity Policy and work to identify opportunities for improvement, such as partnering with universities to recruit talent.

Pilgrim’s also actively partners with the U.S. federal government to guarantee a lawful and legal workforce. Since 2012, Pilgrim’s has participated in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers (IMAGE) program. The IMAGE program promotes voluntary compliance with employment authorization provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act and assists in the prevention of the hiring or continued employment of people who are not authorized to work in the U.S. As a committed employer of a legal workforce, Pilgrim’s is assisted by the program in its efforts to develop a more secure and stable workforce, and enhance fraudulent document awareness through education and training.

Equal Employment Opportunity

As part of our Equal Employment Opportunity Policy, we reaffirm our commitment to recruit, hire, promote and train all team members regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or age. Pilgrim’s is dedicated to providing equal opportunities to all people, including military veterans and qualified individuals with disabilities.

Compensation and Benefits

Pilgrim’s provides competitive pay to our team members and rewards top performers. Our compensation philosophy is meritocratic, and we strive to reward team members for their specific contributions. All team members receive paid time off with specifics being dependent on state regulations and union contracts as applicable. The minimum time of paid sick leave (personal days) for all salaried employees is 40 hours. Additionally, team members are not required to provide proof of medical diagnosis before utilizing sick leave. The minimum time of paid time off for all employees is 40 hours, availability timing of this is dependent on eligibility criteria and/or union contracts at each specific facility location. All team members and their families are offered benefits including medical, dental and vision insurance. Dependent on qualifications, some employees may receive 6 weeks of paid short-term disability for the birth of a child. We also provide life and disability insurance, and offer flexible spending accounts to promote healthy lifestyles amongst team members. Additionally, team members are provided the option to contribute to company matching retirement plans; these vary depending on the country in which the team member lives and works.

Finally, variable compensation is key to the company’s compensation system and is designed to reflect our “why” and to encourage management team members to drive short- and long-term performance of the organization financially and as related to non-financial key performance indicators including company values and individual 360 Assessments which are conducted annually. The 360 Assessment is a multi-source performance/behavioral evaluation and feedback tool meant to assess employees against the Pilgrim’s company values. Every salaried employee participates in this process and 360 evaluations directly impact variable pay. Pilgrim’s believes that results and behaviors are equally important and this is reflected in our variable pay award process which considers both financial performance along with non-financial values performance.

Engaging Our Team Members

We value the thoughts and opinions of our team members and conduct regular surveys to maintain an accurate understanding of team member engagement, perceptions and attitudes on topics such as pay and benefits, scheduling, safety and satisfaction with supervisors. Surveys are refined annually to get more specific feedback from our team members. We work to quickly identify and address concerns from our team members and strive to create an environment where team members recognize the importance of their roles. 100% of all Pilgrim’s U.S. and Mexico salaried team members receive performance reviews and a portion of Pilgrim’s Europe salaried team members receive performance reviews.

Finally, at Pilgrim’s we conduct an annual GLINT survey across all team members to understand what is working well and what can be improved upon at our company, including employee satisfaction and engagement. This survey is provided in multiple formats across more than 20 languages and all salaried and hourly team members across the company are given the opportunity to provide feedback through this survey. The survey includes multiple choice questions and free form response questions to help management understand where team members feel the company is successful regarding their satisfaction and engagement, and where the company can improve on these topics. Each year survey results are reviewed with management and action plans are created and implemented across the company to address the most critical areas highlighted by the survey. In the 2020 – 2021 survey we had a 90% response rate, a 68% favorability score and an improved score on 10 topic categories. We also had four topic categories whose scores decreased, highlighting the immediate and longer-term opportunities for our company to improve upon.