DMA’s 2006 Salary Survey: Raising The Bar

By Laura E. Vasilion

(reprinted from Dietary Manager, November/December 2006)

Results of DMA’s 2006 Salary and Benefits Survey are in and the news is good! A record number of respondents—3,001—provided information on their wages, benefits, facility, and geographic region. Participants also provided personal information on their level of education, certification, and years of experience in the industry. Based on those factors, salaries for dietary managers— and those with similar job titles—are reported here.

An Overview of the Survey’s Findings

The majority (97 percent) of survey respondents indicated they worked full-time. About 68 percent reported they were salaried employees. About 60 percent indicated an annual salary between $25,000 and $45,000. This year there is a slight increase in the number of participants earning annual salaries between $45,000 and $55,000. Overall, there were only, on average, about 1-2 percent fluctuations in findings from 2005 to 2006 in most categories.

Analysis of the survey’s findings also revealed:

• The average full-time salary is $40,374. This is an increase of about 3 percent from the 2005 survey.
• Those with CDM, CFPP credentials continued to earn more than those without them.
• Participants with culinary arts education or a Bachelor’s degree earned the highest salaries.
• Years of industry experience positively impacts salary.
• Excluding those working in the military, participants employed in continuous care retirement communities earned the highest salary.
• Participants working in a major city or suburb earned substantially higher salaries than those in rural areas.
• Respondents that had salaried positions earned more than those with hourly positions.
• The greater the number of employees a dietary manager supervises, the larger their paycheck.
• The highest annual salary reported was $55,095 for a dietary manager in Region 9 with over 30 years of industry experience. Last year’s highest salary, which also came from Region 9, came in at $53,648 for a dietary manager with 21-25 years of industry experience.
• The lowest annual salary reported was $25,406 for a dietary manager in Region 6 with 0-5 years of industry experience. Last year’s lowest salary for a dietary manager with 0-5 years of industry experience was $25,977 in Region 5.

How to Read the Survey Data

To determine how your salary rates, find the data that most closely represents you. For example, under certification, choose yes or no. Under level of education, find the appropriate level completed. Find similar data and corresponding salaries for your facility type and region of the country. After you have compiled all figures that apply to you, list these salaries from low to high. This is your personal salary range.

With so many regional, educational, and personal considerations to take into account, it is not possible to provide you with an exact figure. However, by utilizing the graphs and data provided, you can obtain a salary range that best fits your personal and professional profile.

How you use this information is up to you. If, for example, your current salary falls on the low side of your range, you can take this information to your facility director and see why, and if there is a way to narrow the gap. Or, if your current salary is on the high side of the range, perhaps it’s time to consider acquiring more education or certification to keep moving forward.

Profile of Participants

The majority of respondents (94 percent) stated they were CDM, CFPPs. About 61 percent indicated they had completed the Dietary Managers Course. Roughly 15 percent reported having Bachelor’s degrees. Another 13 percent stated they had an Associate’s degree. The most commonly reported job titles were: director of food service (398); dietary manager (366); and certified dietary manager (113). Of those polled, 14 participants listed their job titles as executive chef. Only 7 respondents listed their job titles exclusively as administrator.

Roughly 38 percent of the participants had 16-25 years of industry experience. Those with the most experience, 26-30 years, account for just over 17 percent. At opposite ends of the spectrum, those with the least amount of experience, zero to five years, accounted for just over 6 percent. Those with more than 30 years experience represented just over 10 percent of the participants.

Under the category of number of hours worked, about 44 percent of survey respondents indicated they worked 40-50 hours per week. Another 37 percent said they put in a 40 hour week.

Regarding the number of hours dietary managers spend cooking, 66 percent of those interviewed reported they did not cook at all. Another 22 percent indicated they cooked anywhere from 30 minutes to 10 hours a week. Only 12 percent indicated cooking 10-40 hours a week. No one reported cooking more than 40 hours a week.

Just over 88 percent of respondents reported the number of hours they cooked per week has not risen in the past year.

Profiles of participants were further broken down by facility types. Of those responding, 38 percent were identified as dietary managers working in a long-term care/nursing home. Another 21 percent stated they worked in a hospital. Those working in continuous care retirement communities represented 9 percent of the total respondents.

Geographically, the majority of participants— 15 percent—came from Regions 1 and 3. Region 1 represents the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Region 3 represents the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee. The geographic area with the fewest respondents—3.2 percent—was Region 8, representing the states of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Eighteen members from outside the U.S. responded to the survey, including five members from Canada, one from Brazil, one from the UK, and one from Armenia.

Size of Facility

Nearly 22 percent of respondents reported having facilities with an average daily census between 101 and 150 people, a 3 percent decrease from the 2005 survey. The number of participants who indicated serving another 1 to 25 meals per day beyond the meals prepared for patients and residents rose slightly from 25.2 percent in 2005 to 26.7 percent in 2006. The number of respondents disclosing budgets between $200,000 and $500,000 also rose from last year’s figure of 24 percent to this year’s 25.4 percent. Also on the rise—from 2005’s 13 percent to 2006’s 14.6 percent— were the number of respondents saying they had annual budgets of $500,000 to $1,000,000. Only 3 percent of respondents indicated their annual budget had not changed from last year. The majority, 40.2 percent, reported increases of 1 to 3 percent beyond the previous year.

When polled concerning the number of employees that reported to them, about 41 percent told us they had 6-15 employees. When asked if any of their employees were CDMs, 43.6 percent reported having anywhere from 1 to more than 5 staff members who were CDMs. This is a 5.5 percent decrease from last year’s figure. Over 56 percent reported none of their employees were CDMs. Nearly 75 percent of those polled said their dietary staff will remain the same size during the coming year.

Participants were also asked how many hours a dietitian was in their facility. Over 50 percent replied that they had a dietitian in their facility for 10 hours a week or less. Roughly 29 percent indicated a dietitian was in their facility 40 hours a week or more. About 13 percent of those surveyed reported having no dietitian coverage in their facility at all.

Just over 60 percent of respondents stated they worked in small town/rural facilities with populations under 100,000.

See the Size of Facility Chart >

Benefits

In any salary survey, benefits are an important issue. Most participants in this survey identified types of benefits included in their compensation plans.

The top five benefits were found to be paid vacations, paid holidays, paid sick days, medical insurance, and life insurance. To a lesser degree, other benefits considered were pension plans or 401 (k) plans, dental insurance, disability insurance, and vision insurance.

Nearly 86 percent of those polled indicated paid vacation time as a benefit. Paid holidays got a response of just under 82 percent. Medical insurance came in at 77 percent, while paid sick days came in at 75.5 percent. Exactly 46 percent of participants reported they received 11-20 days of paid vacation per year. Less than half that number, 22.4 percent, said they received 21-30 days of paid vacation annually.

The Survey Process at a Glance

DMA’s Web-based Salary and Benefits Survey was conducted in April and May of 2006 by Perception Solutions, a company specializing in data collection and analysis. All DMA members with viable e-mail addresses were contacted and invited to participate.

The survey, which consisted of 22 questions, was sent in three waves of e-mail invitations to 7,908 members. Of that number, 1,489 e-mails were undeliverable. A total of 2,958 completed the survey online.

A copy of the survey was also included in the May issue of DIETARY MANAGER magazine. About 43 members mailed or faxed back this paper version to Perception Solutions, resulting in a total survey response of 3,001, which exceeds last year’s number (2,711) by 290. This rate of return, 47 percent, was deemed by Perception Solutions as an acceptable and statistically valid sample size.

A Word of Thanks

Once again, the response to DMA’s 2006 Salary and Benefits Survey was a record-breaker. To all the busy dietary managers who took the time to fill out and return the reporting form, we extend our thanks. Greater participation means we can provide you with more accurate results. Those results mean better information for you to utilize in your own salary assessment.

Our goal in compiling and providing Salary Survey results is to give you a valuable resource for furthering your career goals. Use it. Learn from it. Be inspired by it. Refer to it when you need a reminder that the more education you receive and the more networking you do, the better prepared you are to advance your career and keep growing professionally.