Leading Companies Online Magazine Archives
Happiness and Employee Ownership
By Ray Smilor, Beyster Institute Executive Director
What is happiness to an entrepreneur? A growing company, a positive cash flow, a motivated workforce, quality products and services, a company that does good while doing well?
Sometimes we imagine happiness as lounging on a yacht in the Caribbean or sitting contentedly on a mountaintop contemplating the universe – which could definitely be components of overall happiness. But researchers have identified another element that may be key to happiness as well: eudaimonic well-being. This comes from the Greek eu for “good” and daimon for “spirit.” It means always striving toward excellence based on our unique talent and potential and always working toward achieving worthwhile purposes.
Richard Davidson, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor, says that eudaimonic well-being results in “the positive emotion accompanying thoughts that are directed toward meaningful goals.”
At our annual conference in Chicago this year, three entrepreneurs will open the program and demonstrate how employee ownership has resulted in increased happiness – through eudaimonic well-being for themselves and their employee owners.
Cecil Ursprung is the chairman and former president and CEO of Reflexite Corporation in Avon, Connecticut. Reflexite, a global company with 500 employee-owners, deals in the management of light with a wide range of reflective products and optical displays. Cecil helped build the company by using employee ownership to shift from control to commitment in shaping the culture of the organization. He linked an innovative quality improvement process to broad-based employee ownership. Consequently, the company almost never loses a customer! Those results are a huge source of pride and satisfaction, i.e. increased happiness among those who work there.
Martin Babinec is CEO and president of TriNet in San Leandro, California. His company provides HR outsourcing services to over 1,800 customers and 35,000 employees in the United States and Canada. TriNet has been labeled a “small giant” in its industry as it has pioneered innovative ways to assist companies in meeting all of their HR needs. Martin used equity incentives to identify and develop “critical performers” at all levels of the organization. Utilizing techniques like open-book management, he has promoted financial literacy in the organization, rewarded employees with a stake in the company, and built a tenured management team…leading to higher levels of happiness for those who help the company to grow.
Frieda Takaki is president and CEO of Chart Rehabilitation in Honolulu, Hawaii. Chart provides physical therapy services to workers compensation patients at two medical facilities. She used an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) to purchase the company from the original founders in 2001. She had helped build the company and did not want it sold to an outside party. More important for her was maintaining the close family culture that she had worked to develop. Her 60 employees now show their commitment in a variety of ways from participation in ownership committees to saving money by turning off the lights and shampooing the carpets themselves. The result is a prosperous enterprise, nearly 100 percent retention of staff, and happier people.
One result of employee ownership is that many of those who have a stake in their companies may in fact come to enjoy that yacht or that mountaintop…or be able to send their kids to college, or buy a second home or retire in some comfort. But they may also know the well-being that comes from personal satisfaction or pursuing a worthy purpose.
George Bernard Shaw, the great Irish playwright, observed: “This is the true joy in life, to be used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one.” Employee ownership can help in this regard as these entrepreneurs have demonstrated. That sounds like eudaimonic well-being to me.
©2008 The Beyster Institute and its authors and their entities. All rights reserved.
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