Brady Fox: Let’s expand employee stock ownership programs

Over time, I became more and more curious about employee ownership. In 2023, I attended a conference organized by the Vermont Employee Ownership Center. It was eye opening to meet people from other companies that are employee owned and recognize we have similar cultures built on collaboration and transparency.

I attended sessions about how ESOPs work, the math and science behind it, and soaked in all the information that seemed so far off when I first got hired. That’s when I really began to put together what it is. I still don’t understand everything. It can be really technical. But gaining a general understanding of how an ESOP works, that’s when I realized how lucky I was to be a part of it.

The conference inspired me to join with some colleagues to form an ESOP committee at PC to educate employees on how the ESOP works, why it works and to innovate new ways to think together and further our collaborative culture. I went from not knowing anything about ESOPs to passionately believing they can and should be our future.

The ESOP makes capitalism work for everybody. And in this time of increasing divisiveness, they are wildly popular across party lines. Imagine finding something that both Bernie Sanders and Ronald Reagan might have agreed on. That’s the ESOP.

But there’s just not enough of them. There are only 29 in Vermont, according to the most recent data from the National Center on Employee Ownership, despite extensive research that shows employees stay longer, get laid off less and have more in retirement savings than their non-ESOP counterparts.

I was thrilled to find out recently about a new national coalition, Expanding ESOPs, which seeks to give workers everywhere a shot at employee ownership. I hope there’s a day soon when there’s 10 times that many ESOPs in Vermont. Or, better yet, imagine if every worker in the state could own a piece of the company where they work.

I’d love to see what the Gallup survey would say when that happens.

As seen in VTDIgger and written by Brady Fox.