This month, we celebrate 12 months of being accredited as a Real Living Wage employer. Our Managing Director Hannah Barlow, talks about our reasons for joining the initiative, and the impact we’ve seen just 12 months in…
“Over the past 60 years, Dunsters Farm has had a strong reputation for looking after our people, but we wanted to do more. Over the past few years, we have committed to a new benefit for our team each year and in 2022, we were delighted to become a Real Living Wage Employer. ”
After an in-depth audit, the Real Living Wage Foundation accredited Dunsters Farm as an official Real Living Wage employer, recognising our commitment to paying staff according to the cost of living. For 2023, this is a minimum of £10.90 an hour. A UK wage rate that’s voluntarily paid by businesses, instead of the statutory £9.50 minimum wage.
“Unlike the minimum wage, The Real Living Wage is independently calculated and reflects the true cost of living for households. Fair pay, for a fair day’s work.”
“We’ve been building a host of additional benefits for our staff team over the past couple of years such as a health cash plan, flexible working options new wellbeing initiatives mental health support, and hardship loans for those staff that need them”.
“Alongside the Real Living Wage, these benefits mean we can offer new starters an attractive & diverse package & has made recruitment much easier. Over the past 12 months, hiring 61 new staff to our team.”
Dunsters Farm is based in the North West, a region where nearly a fifth of all roles (18.4%) are paying less than the real living wage – around 534,000 jobs.
“We know there are still a vast number of roles in our region not paying the real living wage, and equally we understand the pressures being put on small businesses like ours.”
“Because of this, we’re actively trying to tell our story. Promoting the positive impact, we’ve seen since becoming real living wage employers, whether that be in retention, recruitment or staff wellbeing. Not only is it a good thing to do… it also makes great business sense.”
