This Month: Plant Managers

November: Sales and Marketing Executives

December: Laboratory & Technical

The LubesnGreases 2008 Salary Survey, like Capital One, is once again asking the question, Whats in your wallet?

And if youre a plant manager working at a lube manufacturer or a lube distributor in the United States, the answer appears to be plenty. This year, the average reported salary for this job category is $111,100, and the median is $101,450. In our last salary survey, conducted in 2006, the average was $85,200 (median $80,000).

Those are the highest figures seen for plant managers compensation since LubesnGreases first began gathering data on lubricants industry salaries seven years ago. It is also the first time that this groups compensation has crept above the six-figure mark.

Thats an amazing jump, said Ken Pelczarski, a consultant at Pelichem Associates, Downers Grove, Ill., who helps match job seekers with companies in the lubricants and chemical industry (and vice versa). He attributed that sharp rise to having a greater percentage of responses this year from managers at large-size companies, where performance perks like bonuses and other incentives often times boost the takehome pay of key employees.

The news gets better for plant managers at lube manufacturers, who report they earn an average of almost $124,550. By contrast, the average annual total for a plant manager at a lube distributorship is $77,400.

That gap in pay suggests another reason the overall average is so much higher this year. Fifty of this years plant managers say they work for lube manufacturers and only 20 say they work for lube distributors, where staffs are somewhat smaller, operations are less complex and salaries are accordingly lower. In prior years, the manufacturer/distributor split was less lopsided.

At the Helm

The typical plant manager responding to the 2008 survey is 47 years old. He is far more likely to be male – 66 of our 70 respondents – and on average, has been with his current employer for 13 years. He or she has held this current position for almost nine years.

Although plant managers at lube manufacturers report having a few more years of experience under their belt, respondents overall say they have an average of 20 years of experience.

Lube plant managers also report supervising more staff, but perhaps not significantly more than their distributor counterparts. They supervise a median of 13 employees (average is 28), while distributor plant managers supervise a median of 12 employees (average: 25).

Just as gaining experience in any field is a valuable asset, so are credentials. And in the lubricants industry that does appear to translate into a better payday..

Six of the plant managers who responded to the survey say they hold Certified Lubrication Specialist (CLS) credentials from the Society of Tribologists & Lubrication Engineers – three of them at manufacturers and three at distributors. These managers report a higher average salary, $119,800, versus an average of $111,100 for the entire pool of respondents.

Location, Location

The surveys 70 respondents also indicate that it pays to work in certain geographic regions of the country. Plant managers are earning the best salaries in the Northeastern states, at an average of $147,700, the data show.

There is no manufacturing boom going on in the Northeast, pointed out consultant Pelczarski. He believes the regions outsized compensation must mean that most of its respondents are working for large-size companies, where heftier salaries are the norm.

At the opposite side of the country, in the Northwest, we found the lowest salaries, averaging $54,250. Thats about a third of what folks in the Northeast reported. But the Northwest is also the region where we got the lowest response rate, only two participants – likely too small to be representative of the region as a whole.

Most of the industrys plant managers who responded to the survey (72 percent) are concentrated in the Northcentral, Southcentral and Southeast regions of the country. Thats not surprising, since they include such lube manufacturing strongholds as Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Texas and Louisiana. Average yearly pay for plant managers who weighed in from those three regions ranged from $93,800 to $117,700.

Geography was certainly one of the considerations of Pat Boss, an assistant plant manager at Gordon Terminal Service in Bayonne, N.J., when he was hired by the company last November. The lube blender and packager recruited Boss after he left Olympic Oil in Chicago last spring.

My first choice was to stay in the Chicago area, said Boss, but I couldnt find anything that I was looking for. I considered crossing over industries, it didnt have to be oil but I wanted to stay on the manufacturing side.

Region factored into the negotiations that brought him to Gordon Terminals, as did the opportunity to work for a company that he was comfortable with, the position itself, and salary and benefits.

Region was certainly important, Boss commented. Had I gotten a job in Oklahoma, my salary requirements would have been very different.

Is Bigger Better?

As seen with prior years surveys, for the most part, lube industry plant managers are better compensated when they work for large-size companies

Forty percent of this years respondents say they work for companies that have over 200 employees. (In 2006, only about a quarter were with companies of that scale.)

Almost twenty-eight percent this year work for companies that employ 51 to 200, and the rest say their company has 50 or fewer.

Median salaries for plant managers working at companies with over 500 employees is $125,000, and its $130,000 for those at companies with 201 to 500 employees.

The median salary reported by plant managers working for companies with 101 to 200 employees is $78,250; for companies with 51 to 100 employees it is $75,000; and managers at the smallest firms (10 or fewer employees) earn a median $52,000. Only respondents at companies with 11 to 50 employees break that graduated attern, and report a median salary of $89,000.

Overall however, the incline in the salary ramp seems to bear out the notion that the upper rungs are reserved for those at the largest companies.

Bonus Round

A vast majority – 76 percent – of plant managers at lube manufacturers and distributors in this years survey answered that they received a raise in the last 12 months. Thats more than was reported in the 2006 survey, when 70 percent had received a raise in the past year.

Seventy-one percent of all plant managers say they also are expecting a bonus. And 9 percent say they expect other compensation like company stock, equity or commission.

Business consultant Francie Dalton is not surprised to hear our respondents cite such add-ons. Whats more, she says, many employees now expect benefits not related to compensation.

Employees today want flexibility in their schedules and to have more time with their families, Dalton said.

As founder and president of Dalton Alliances in Columbia, Md., Dalton surveys employees on work place

issues. After giving the feedback to management, she provides executive coaching that helps organizations and individuals implement workrelated changes.

And what employees want, Dalton said, are benefits such as childcare reimbursements and day care for seniors. Employees are also asking for gym and spa memberships, and access to legal and financial services. They are even looking for their employers to sponsor more family-oriented events throughout the year. Savvy companies will use such inducements to attract the best workers, she said.

Gender Gap

The 2008 Salary Survey once again asked respondents their gender, and as in prior surveys, this years were overwhelmingly male at 94 percent. In fact, only four identified themselves as female this year, all of them working at lubricant manufacturing plants.

The women responding to the survey are four years older on average (52) than their male peers, and have been in their current position for 10 years. Male plant managers at lube manufacturers have an average of nine years on the job – not much different.

In terms of salary, our women managers take home a median salary of $127,500. Thats slightly ahead of men with equivalent backgrounds (that is, roughly a decade of experience, lube manufacturing company, supervising a median 13 employees). Forty six male respondents fit that description, and they attained a median salary of $120,000. One other spot where the women came out ahead: 100 percent of them said they got a raise in the past year. However, the small number of women respondents makes further comparisons difficult.

In any case, its royal compensation for both female and male plant managers in the lubricant industry. The highest paid female in this years survey says she earned $190,000, and the highest paid male took home $310,000.