| Course | SUST 5013 People First: Creating Value Beyond Profit |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 2 |
| Paper type | Employee practices value analysis |
| Length | 1,230 words, about 4 pages plus title and reference pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | American College of Education |
| Program | M.S. in Organizational Leadership |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for SUST 5013 Module 2
Living Wages, Equity Grants and Raise the Barn: Do Vital Farms' Crew Practices Create Value?
Student Name
American College of Education
SUST5013: People First: Creating Value Beyond Profit
Module 2 Assignment
Instructor Name
September 11, 2028
Introduction
The first paper mapped the stakeholders of Vital Farms, the pasture-raised egg company organized as a Delaware public benefit corporation, and identified its 739 full-time crew members as a group with legitimate claims and some bargaining power. Among the six public benefits in its charter is a promise that crew members will thrive in a workplace that is both empowering and enjoyable (Vital Farms, Inc., 2026). This paper evaluates whether the company's employee practices create value, both for crew members and for the business. It groups the practices described in the FY2025 10-K, tests them against research and names the evidence the company does not provide.
How Employee Practices Create Value
Research offers three main explanations. Huselid (1995) surveyed close to a thousand companies and found that those making heavier use of a bundle of practices, including rigorous hiring, training, formal appraisal and pay linked to results, kept workers longer, produced more per employee and earned better financial returns. Edmans (2011) tracked firms named as top American employers by a well-known annual ranking and found that, across more than two decades, their shares beat those of similar companies, suggesting markets undervalued employee satisfaction. Blasi et al. (2016) found that broad-based employee ownership and profit sharing tended to strengthen positive workplace practices and outcomes, including lower turnover intentions and greater willingness to work hard.
Pay
At the Missouri egg plant, hourly crew members are paid more than the local living wage for a single adult without children (Vital Farms, Inc., 2026). This is a meaningful commitment in a plant setting, where wages are often set at the market rate. It is also a limited one: the benchmark is a single adult, not a parent supporting children, and the 10-K gives no figure for the wage itself or for how it compares with competing employers. Still, pay above a living wage fits Huselid's account of practices that reduce turnover by making jobs worth keeping.
Ownership and Benefits
All full-time crew members are eligible for health insurance, paid parental leave, retirement contributions, the employee stock purchase plan, equity grants and free company products (Vital Farms, Inc., 2026). The equity grants are the most distinctive element. Extending ownership beyond managers matches the practices studied by Blasi et al. (2016), who found that shared capitalism works best when combined with other supportive practices, such as participation in decisions and training, rather than standing alone. Ownership gives crew members a stake in the growth that stockholders also want, which can soften one of the tensions identified in the stakeholder map.
Selection, Onboarding and Development
The company describes a selection process aimed at hiring people aligned with its values, onboarding that includes visits to its Austin headquarters and in-person onboarding at the Missouri plant and a development program launched in 2024 called Core Competencies. The program covers structure and planning, problem solving, communication and collaboration, building and inspiring crew, acting with agility and executing with excellence, in cohorts that mix business areas, and managers are encouraged to check progress quarterly (Vital Farms, Inc., 2026). These are classic high-performance practices: deliberate hiring, structured socialization and training tied to clear expectations.
Voice and Communication
The company runs an annual crew survey followed by listening sessions and action plans at both company and department levels. Its 2024 survey, conducted through Great Place to Work, showed improvement in perceptions of work-life balance, inclusion, fairness and development, and the company was certified as a Great Place to Work that year. All-company meetings, called Raise the Barn, are held in person at the Missouri plant, with virtual question-and-answer sessions for remote crew (Vital Farms, Inc., 2026). Regular voice mechanisms matter because, without a union, the survey and meetings are the main channels through which crew members can raise concerns.
Safety and Plant Design
Egg processing involves repetitive lifting and handling. The company reports that it continues to automate physically demanding processes at its plant and works with a local occupational health organization on regular ergonomic assessment and training. The plant's design includes daylighting, climate control and slip-resistant floors in the egg grading room (Vital Farms, Inc., 2026). These features are easy to overlook, but for plant crew they may matter more day to day than equity grants. They also connect to value, since injuries raise costs and turnover and slow production.
Governance of Human Capital
Human capital is overseen by the compensation committee of the board, whose charter covers development, retention, wellness and engagement, and the committee receives regular updates from the chief people officer (Vital Farms, Inc., 2026). Board-level oversight signals that crew practices are treated as strategic. It also creates a channel through which the board can weigh crew interests in its balancing duty as a public benefit corporation. What the 10-K does not show is how the committee measures success, such as which retention or engagement targets it reviews.
Is Value Being Created?
The business evidence is suggestive. Over the four years to fiscal 2025, sales nearly tripled, and the company earned $66.3 million in net income in its latest year (Vital Farms, Inc., 2026). Rapid growth requires hiring and training many people quickly, and a reputation as a good employer helps. Research gives reasons to expect that practices like these lower turnover and raise productivity (Huselid, 1995) and that markets may not fully price employee satisfaction (Edmans, 2011). But growth has many causes, including strong consumer demand for pasture-raised eggs, so crew practices cannot be credited with the results on this evidence alone.
Gaps in the Evidence
Several measures that would allow a firmer judgment are missing from the 10-K. It gives no turnover or retention rates for plant or salaried crew, no wage figures, no injury rates and no survey scores, only the direction of change. It does not say what share of crew hold equity or how large grants are for hourly workers. It also covers only direct employees; workers on the more than 600 contract farms are outside these practices. The company's impact report may contain some of this information; a complete evaluation would combine it with the 10-K and with independent sources.
Recommendations
Three recommendations follow. First, publish a short set of crew measures each year: turnover and retention by plant and salaried roles, the median hourly wage at the plant compared with the living wage for a family, recordable injury rates and survey participation and favorability. Second, set the living wage benchmark for a parent with one child, which would better reflect plant workers' circumstances. Third, extend some practices, such as safety training and access to development, to farm workers through farm partnership programs, since their work is central to the company's purpose even though they are not its employees.
Conclusion
Vital Farms' crew practices, including pay above a living wage at its plant, equity grants and benefits for all full-time crew, structured development, regular voice mechanisms, attention to plant safety and board oversight, closely match the practices that research ties to longer employee tenure, more output per worker and stronger results. The company's growth is consistent with value being created, but the 10-K does not disclose the measures needed to confirm it. Publishing those measures would strengthen both accountability to crew members and the case for the business value of its approach. The next module turns to community and supplier relationships.
References
Blasi, J., Freeman, R., & Kruse, D. (2016). Do broad-based employee ownership, profit sharing and stock options help the best firms do even better? British Journal of Industrial Relations, 54(1), 55-82. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12135
Edmans, A. (2011). Does the stock market fully value intangibles? Employee satisfaction and equity prices. Journal of Financial Economics, 101(3), 621-640. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2011.03.021
Huselid, M. A. (1995). The impact of human resource management practices on turnover, productivity, and corporate financial performance. Academy of Management Journal, 38(3), 635-672. https://doi.org/10.2307/256741
Vital Farms, Inc. (2026). Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 28, 2025. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1579733/000119312526073423/vitl-20251228.htm
What the SUST 5013 Module 2 instructions ask for
The second SUST 5013 paper typically asks you to evaluate a company's employee practices as a source of value. Expect to describe specific practices, such as pay, benefits, ownership, development, voice and safety, using the company's own documents, and to explain with research how such practices create value for employees and the business. Most prompts reward balanced judgment: say where evidence supports the company's claims and where it is missing. Recommendations should be specific and feasible. Connect the analysis to the stakeholder map and the company's stated public benefits, and cite research and filings in APA 7. Distinguish direct employees from contract or supply chain workers. If the company publishes an impact report, compare its employee figures with the 10-K and note any differences in scope or year.
Inside the SUST 5013 Module 2 example
The sample opens with three lines of research: high-performance work practices, employee satisfaction and stock returns and broad-based ownership. Practices are then grouped and tested: pay above a living wage at the plant, equity grants and benefits for full-time crew, selection, onboarding and Core Competencies, the annual survey and Raise the Barn meetings, ergonomics and plant design and compensation committee oversight. A section on value weighs growth figures against other causes. Missing turnover, wage, injury and survey data are named, and three recommendations follow. Throughout, company statements are attributed to the filing rather than presented as established fact, and research findings are matched to the specific practice they bear on.
SUST 5013 Module 2 rubric: what full marks look like
Employee practice evaluations are graded on specificity, research and balance. Graders look for practices described from company documents, research explaining how such practices create value and judgments that match the evidence. Strong papers note conditions under which practices work, separate employees from contract workers and identify missing data rather than assuming success. Specific recommendations, such as measures to publish, are often credited. Papers that repeat employer branding, cite research without linking it to practices or claim financial results prove the practices work tend to score lower. Cite filings and research accurately in APA 7. Explaining the conditions under which research finds a practice effective, rather than citing research that the practice is good in general, shows deeper understanding.
Common SUST 5013 Module 2 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Evaluating employee practices means reading past employer branding to the policies themselves. We can help you find the practices a company actually discloses, link them to research on how they create value and identify the evidence that is missing. Tell us which company you mapped in Module 1 and attach the prompt so we can prepare an evaluation with balanced judgments and specific recommendations. Benefit corporations in food, apparel, finance and consumer goods all work. Most evaluations are ready within two days, with each practice traced to the page of the filing that describes it. If your company is private, we can work from its benefit report and other public sources instead.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official American College of Education document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
More SUST 5013 and M.S. in Organizational Leadership sample papers
- SUST 5013 Module 1: Vital Farms Stakeholder Map
- SUST 5013 Module 3: Vital Farms Farms and Communities
- SUST 5013 Module 4: Vital Farms Impact Reporting
- SUST 5013 Module 5: Vital Farms Impact Plan
- DIV 5013 Module 4: Authenticity and Respect Review
- DIV 5013 Module 1: People and Task Leadership
- DATA 5023 Module 5: Cause-and-Effect Strategy Plan
- DATA 5013 Module 4: Focus Groups and Coding
SUST 5013 Module 2 questions, answered
What does SUST5013 Module 2 usually ask for?
Module 2 of SUST5013 usually asks you to evaluate a company's employee practices as a source of value for workers and the business, using research and evidence.
What are high-performance work practices?
Practices such as careful selection, training, performance management and incentive pay, which Huselid's 1995 study linked to lower turnover and better firm performance.
Does employee ownership improve performance?
Research by Blasi, Freeman and Kruse suggests broad-based ownership and profit sharing help most when combined with other supportive workplace practices.
Where can I find a free SUST 5013 Module 2 sample paper?
This page has one: Vital Farms' living wage, equity grants, development program, crew survey and plant safety practices evaluated against research, with evidence gaps named.
What if a company does not disclose turnover or wage data?
Say so, explain what the missing data would show and recommend that the company publish it; gaps are part of the evaluation.