Crew Leader

Job description

The Strawberry Crew Leader is responsible for providing leadership and supervision to harvest crew. Ensures quality and quantity performance targets are met for the assigned commodity. Responsible for crew production, employee and food safety, employee retention, and administrative duties. Establishes and follows a packaging review system that ensures harvested product 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 Harvest Aid and/or ground crew of strawberry harvesters, puncher, and stacker to ensure harvesting is being done in a safe, compliant, and efficient manner.
Specific duties include:

• Ensures harvesters are picking quantity and quality fruit 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.
• Updates Dashboard with quality scores, vacant positions, special announcements and miscellaneous accomplishments.
• 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 Electronic 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 crew members in a complete and timely fashion.
• Disciplines directs reports via a formal written progressive disciplinary process. Specific reasons for issuing a disciplinary notice include:
o Attendance policy violations
o Poor work performance
o Violation of Safety Rules
• Return the trailer to the yard at the end of the day. Clean up trash and excess material and prepare the trailer for the next day.
• Operate Tractor to move trailer as necessary during workday.
• Attend monthly Safety and HR meetings. Comply with all mandatory training as required by State and Federal Labor Laws.

Special Requirements

Twelve (12) months working 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. Ability to communicate 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.