DMA’s 2008 Salary Survey: A Year of Promise

By Laura E. Vasilion

(reprinted from Dietary Manager, November/December 2008)

The results of DMA’s 2008 Salary and Benefits Survey, conducted in three waves of online invitations in July and August, show promising salary trends. A record number of respondents—3,387—provided information on their wages, benefits, facility, and geographic region. Participants also supplied personal information on 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 fulltime. About 67 percent reported they were salaried employees. The majority of survey participants (61 percent) indicated they worked in small town/rural areas with populations under 100,000. The range of salaries reported was slightly less than $25,000 (10 percent surveyed) to slightly more than $55,000 (17 percent surveyed). The average annual salary in 2008 was calculated to be $42,786—a 6 percent increase over 2006’s average annual salary of $40,374.

Analysis of the survey’s findings also revealed:

• Years of industry experience positively impacts salary.
• Excluding those working in the military, participants employed in continuous care retirement communities and hospitals earned the highest salaries.
• 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.
• Participants working in a major city or suburb earned substantially higher salaries than those in rural areas.
• Geographically, the highest annual salary reported this year was $58,842 for a dietary manager in Region 9 with over 30 years of industry experience. The highest salary in 2006, also from Region 9, came in at $55,095 for a dietary manager with over 30 years of industry experience.
• The lowest annual salary reported was $27,315 for a dietary manager in Region 5 with 0-5 years of industry experience. The lowest salary in 2006 was $25,406 for a dietary manager in Region 6 with 0-5 years of industry experience.

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. Let’s say your current salary falls on the low side of your range. 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 more education, certification, or relocating to another area of the country to keep moving forward.

Profile of Participants

The majority of respondents (96 percent) stated they were CDM, CFPPs. That is up from 94 percent in 2006. About 63 percent indicated they had completed the Dietary Managers Course, as compared to 61 percent in 2006. Roughly 13 percent indicated they had a bachelor’s degree, compared to 15 percent in 2006. Another 13 percent stated they had an associate’s degree. This was the same in 2006. The most commonly reported job titles were: dietary manager (522); food services director (341); and certified dietary manager (143). Only 15 of those polled indicated they worked as executive chefs, and only five listed their job title as administrator.

Roughly 40 percent of the participants responded that they worked in a long-term care/nursing home. About 22 percent indicated they worked in a hospital.

Regarding the number of hours dietary managers spend cooking, 67 percent of those interviewed reported they did not cook at all. Another 21 percent indicated they cooked anywhere from 30 minutes to 10 hours a week. Only 12 percent indicated cooking 10-40 hours a week. Those cooking more than 40 hours a week constituted only 1 percent of respondents. Just over 91 percent of those interviewed reported the number of hours they cooked per week has not risen in the past year. This is up from 88 percent in 2006.

Regionally, the majority of participants who responded live in Region 3 (Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee); Region 4 (Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky); and Region 5 (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana). The geographic area with the fewest respondents—3.8 percent—was Region 8, representing the states of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. There were 69 respondents from outside the U.S. who completed the survey, compared to just five in 2006.

Size of Facility

As shown in the graph, nearly 20 percent of respondents reported working in facilities with an average daily census between 101 and 150 people, down from 22 percent in 2006. However, the number of participants who indicated serving another 1 to 25 meals per day beyond the meals prepared for patients and residents rose from 26.7 percent in 2006 to 29.9 percent in 2008. Also on the rise were the number of respondents saying they had annual budgets of $500,000 to $1,000,000, up from 14.6 percent in 2006 to 15.6 percent in 2008. Most striking was the rise in the number of people who said their annual dietary budgets had not changed at all. In 2006, only 3 percent of those responding indicated their annual budget had not changed from the previous year. In 2008, 34.1 percent reported their annual budgets had not changed from last year.

When polled concerning the number of employees that reported to them, 43.7 percent told us they had 6-15 employees. When asked if any of their employees were CDMs, 32.3 percent reported having anywhere from 1 to over 5 staff members who were CDMs. This is a 10.3 percent decrease from the 2006 figure. Over 66 percent reported none of their employees were CDMs. Nearly 74 percent of those polled said their dietary staff numbers will remain the same during the coming year.

Roughly 61 percent of respondents stated they worked in small town/rural areas 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.

Just over 84 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 78.8 percent, while paid sick days came in at 75.7 percent. About 45 percent of participants reported they received 11-20 days of paid vacation per year. Less than half that number, 22.2 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 published in the July/August issue of DIETARY MANAGER magazine and compiled 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 9,965 members. Of that number, 1,738 e-mails were undeliverable. A total of 3,369 completed the survey online. Additionally, 18 members mailed or faxed the paper version to Perception Solutions, resulting in a 41 percent return rate. This rate of response was deemed by Perception Solutions as an acceptable and statistically valid sample size.

A Word of Thanks

Once again, the response to this year’s Salary and Benefits Survey topped the previous survey’s response. To all the busy dietary managers who took the time to complete 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 the results of the DMA 2008 Salary and Benefits Survey is to give you a valuable resource for furthering your career goals. Use it. Learn from it. Let it be a beacon of inspiration. 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.

And remember, this is a hand-shaking experience. By keeping us informed of trends, needs, and other observations, we can give you the support and guidance you require. Your success is our success.