Crew Leaders (jal)

Job description

The Strawberry Crew Leader is responsible for providing leadership and supervision to ground harvest crew and harvest aid crew. Ensures quality and quantity performance targets are met for the strawberry crop. Responsible for crew production, employee and food safety, employee retention, and administrative duties. Establishes and follows a packaging review system that ensures harvested strawberries meet company standards in quality and appearance and assigns identification stickers to each respective harvester and ensures that all crates are accurately tracked.

Supervises a crew of strawberry harvesters to ensure harvesting is being done in a safe, compliant, and efficient manner.

Specific duties include:
• Repositions harvest aids at the end of each row; when working with harvest aid.
• Loads empty crates onto harvest aid as needed.
• Conducts daily inspection of harvest aids and addresses issues immediately
• Ensures harvesters are picking quantity and quality strawberries per Driscoll’s standards (appearance and weight).
• Trains harvesters on proper harvesting and packaging methods.
• Ensures harvesters are not leaving ripe fruit behind and that over ripe fruit is being removed from the plant.

Promotes a pleasant and healthy work environment by:

Daily communication of work orders, safety reminders and motivational pep talk.
Ensures employees take their rest and meal breaks per state regulations.
Addresses employee suggestions and concerns in a timely and fair fashion
Informs employees of pesticide application and follows proper protocol to avoid having them come in contact with pesticides
Maintains break areas and bathrooms clean and stocked. Mitigates safety risk by complying with safety policies and addressing safety concerns in a timely manner.
Leads daily warm-up exercises
Ensures harvesters do not run in the field
Maintains work area clean and free of objects that may cause accidents
Handles work-related injuries per Company policy.
Delivers monthly safety tailgate meeting.
Inspects equipment such as bathroom trailers, farm vehicles, first aid kits and water containers are in safe and operable conditions.
Ensures clean and fresh water and shaded rest areas are always available.
Participates in safety trainings and obtains required certification.
Ensures that all employees wear the proper work attire to avoid work-related accident or food safety violations.
Accounts for all harvesters via daily attendance tracking and monitoring of leaves of absences.
Distributes employee badges and harvest stickers.
Reviews and handles personal leaves of absence requests and paperwork and monitors return to work dates in timely fashion.
Submits sick time requests for processing in timely fashion.
Completes and submits termination notices for resignations and job abandonments in a timely fashion.
Ensures the correct time of the employees and boxes harvested per person, through the management of electronic devices and applications.
Completes Meal waivers, 7th workday forms, time-off request forms
Participates in the following trainings/meetings:
Sexual Harassment & Discrimination Prevention Training
Leadership training consisting of professional development and company policies topics.
Safety
Retains appropriate number of harvesters to meet production demands. Completes new hire paperwork for crewmembers in a complete and timely fashion.
May be involved in recruitment.
Disciplines directs reports via a formal written progressive disciplinary process. Specific reasons for issuing a disciplinary notice include:
Attendance policy violations
Poor work performance
Clean up trash and excess material and prepare the harvest aid for the next day.
Attend monthly Safety and HR meetings. Comply with all mandatory training as required by State and Federal Labor Laws.
Code of Conduct violations
Driving may be performed

Special Requirements

12 months of experience as Strawberry Crew Leader. Cannot be color blind due to the need to distinguish colors of crops for proper ripeness and maturity, no smoking, illegal drugs, alcohol, or weapons of any sort in the housing or work fields. Proficiency in English or Spanish is required for training and safety purposes. Work is performed outdoors in open fields and can involve exposure to sun, wind, mud, dust, heat, cold and other elements of the normal field environment. Temperatures can range from 50 degrees F to over 90 degrees F during the period of employment. Workers should come prepared with appropriate clothing and footwear for the work and working conditions described.

See Addendum C.