Leading Companies Online Magazine Archives
The Innovations in Employee Ownership Awards:
A Look at Past Winners
By Emily Meyertholen, Beyster Institute Staff
The announcement of the Innovations in Employee Ownership Award winners has become one of the most anticipated and inspiring features of the Employee Ownership Annual Conference. In addition to being recognized, the winners share their winning programs with conference attendees during breakout sessions. As we look forward to learning from this year’s winners at the conference in Chicago, let’s take a look at what made the past winners worthy of this increasingly sought-after honor.
The Innovations in Employee Ownership Award was established in 2006 to recognize companies that have developed innovative practices that make employee ownership stronger and more effective. The awards, made possible by a generous grant from TEOCO, Inc., are issued under the joint stewardship of the Beyster Institute and the National Center for Employee Ownership. By recognizing and publicizing companies that are pioneering best practices in plan design, employee training and education, internal communications, and other aspects of employee ownership, the sponsors hope that others can learn from the award winners.
In its first two years, the award has brought to light creative and effective employee ownership practices from companies of all types and sizes. Here’s a look back at the past winners, along with some insight into why their employee ownership initiatives impressed the judges:
The 2006 Innovations in Employee Ownership Award Winners
At the inaugural Innovations in Employee Ownership award presentation in 2006 in Minneapolis, CALIBRE, Inc., HDOS Enterprises and SmithBucklin Corporation were all awarded for their outstanding entries, and the grand prize went to Reflexite Corporation.
Reflexite Corporation
2006 Grand Prize Winner
Avon, Connecticut
Reflexite, an employee ownership company since 1985, has consistently been a pioneer in ownership management practices and a leader in the employee ownership community. This award, however, recognizes Reflexite's sophisticated approach to integrated ownership, involving not only its ESOP, but a stock option program, a monthly cash "owners' bonus," a global ESOP, and a recently introduced stock purchase plan. This extremely rare combination of short, medium, and long-term ownership programs complements an extensive education and information-sharing system and ambitious employee involvement activities.
CALIBRE
2006 Winner
Alexandria, Virginia
CALIBRE is a management and technology services company that brings impressive systems-level thinking to the development of its own employee ownership. CALIBRE offers 16 coordinated communications vehicles through a variety of media. One member of its active employee committee sits on the board of directors. CALIBRE also ensures continuous improvement in its own internal operations with structured organizational feedback. Partly in response to an employee survey, CALIBRE recently amended its plan to accelerate its participation and vesting schedules. This award recognizes CALIBRE for integrating best practices in governance, communications, plan design, and employee feedback into a coherent package.
HDOS Enterprises
2006 Winner
Carlsbad, California
Celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of its first Hot Dog on a Stick restaurant, HDOS Enterprises is receiving the Innovations Award in recognition of its success in creating an ownership culture under conditions considered impossible by many experts. Despite its multiple locations (over 100 stores in 15 states), size (over 1000 employees), industry (known for high turnover rates), and the average age of its work force (19 years old), HDOS Enterprises is a 100 percent ESOP-owned company. Its carefully tailored training program conveys a profound respect for the abilities of its employees, and the company itself offers an opportunity for advancement and personal growth.
SmithBucklin Corporation
2006 Winner
Chicago, Illinois
At the top of its field, SmithBucklin is the world's largest association management company. On June 24, 2005, SmithBucklin became 100 percent employee-owned in a transaction that included a one-time opportunity for employees to transfer 401(k) assets into the new ESOP. Judges noted a number of innovative features of the transaction and the plan design that resulted in impressive participation rates. SmithBucklin also offers an internal market for company shares and governance practices that will help redefine the best practices for the future. SmithBucklin was nominated for the Innovations Award by the Principal Financial Group.
The 2007 Innovations in Employee Ownership Award Winners
At the 2007 Employee Ownership Conference in San Diego, Cal-Tex Protective Coatings of Scherz, Texas won the grand prize. Awards were also received by New Belgium Brewing of Fort Collins, Colorado; North Highland of Atlanta, Georgia; Paychex of Rochester, New York; and Pizzagalli Construction of South Burlington, Vermont.
Cal-Tex Protective Coatings
2007 Grand Prize Winner
Scherz, Texas
The 80 employee owners of Cal-Tex make aftermarket products including paint, fabric and leather sealants for automobile dealers, but their most impressive accomplishment is showing how much a small visionary company can accomplish. Rather than being simply an aspiration, the Cal-Tex statement of values and purpose actually do permeate the internal company culture and relations with customers. One of the company’s core values is humility, which management exemplifies by shifting an astounding level of decision making to the work force. Aided by intensive daily sharing of financial data, employees set their own production goals in accord with the company’s quarterly goals. Those who meet their goals gradually achieve the status of Certified Employee Owner (CEO), a status that gives them the right to attend company planning sessions regardless of their job titles. The judges wrote that “this company’s employee owners engage themselves in their company’s success profoundly and personally—the level of creativity, connection and exuberance at Cal-Tex amazed us.”
New Belgium Brewing Company
2007 Winner
Fort Collins, Colorado
Some companies lead from the head, some from the heart. New Belgium Brewing does both. The company offers an emotionally rich induction ceremony for new employee owners—people share stories from their personal lives and their experience at the company. They leave the ceremony with a visceral attachment to the company and to their fellow employee owners. At the same time, the company takes a head-on, systematic approach to one of the touchiest issues in employee ownership: employee involvement in management and governance. New Belgium specifies the decision making roles and process for a number of types of decisions, and it automatically includes a member of its employee committee on the board of directors and the company’s strategic planning team.
North Highland
2007 Winner
Atlanta, Georgia
Employee ownership is not a new idea; neither is branding. But never has a company brought the two together as powerfully or comprehensively as North Highland. The company, which provides management and technology consulting services, used an extensive process and involved employees at every step to derive its internal ESOP brand: “Own your life. Own your career. Own your company.” This brand permeates all major processes at North Highland, including employee recruitment, policy and benefit evaluation, employee communications, marketing, and training. Employee owners have a ready answer for what makes their company different, and the ubiquity of the brand has created a different work-life model that centers on the individual employee.
Paychex
2007 Winner
Rochester, New York
The only public company among this year’s award-winners, Paychex is well-known as a provider of payroll, human resources, and benefits solutions to small and medium businesses. With over 11,000 employees and $1.6 billion in revenues, Paychex was named one of Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” in 2007. Its multi-pronged equity compensation program includes an employee stock purchase plan, a company stock fund in its 401(k), and a broad-based stock option program that covers well over 95% of the work force. Employees take extensive advantage of the ability to invest in Paychex, and the company in turn invests in employees with award-winning employee training programs.
Pizzagalli Construction
2007 Winner
South Burlington, Vermont
With over a thousand employees, Pizzagalli Construction is known for the facilities it builds. More quietly, it has created an internal structure where ownership has become an integral part of day-to-day operations as well as its big-picture strategic planning. The company developed explicit ownership-based criteria for recruiting, training and promoting employees. Job descriptions, for example, spell out concrete ownership behaviors—and these expectations help determine who is promoted. On the strategic level, Pizzagalli’s 2006 retreat for its 200 mangers focused on promoting ownership culture. The company also engaged over 400 employees in the analysis that led to the company’s strategic plan development. With a bilingual ownership-oriented newsletter, Pizzagalli represents the information-sharing, inclusive, task-oriented best of employee ownership.
©2008 The Beyster Institute and its authors and their entities. All rights reserved.
|
Back |
|
|
Print this page |
|