As always, our attendees generated a lot of good ideas at the Fall ESOP Forum. A few really struck us.
Perhaps the most common topic for discussion at the recent NCEO Fall ESOP Forum was how to attract and retain employees. The pandemic has made this challenging for a lot of companies, employee-owned or not. Participants agreed that the long-term financial benefit of an ESOP was more useful for retaining than attracting people. Instead, many people observed, the key is to stress the importance of the culture of ownership, often by having prospects talk to employee-owners as part of the interview process or having employee videos on the company website.
Katie Coulson, director of human resources with the 100% ESOP-owned civil construction company Kwest Group, shared an intriguing practice for bolstering retention. Last year, Kwest decided to address the issue of retention by starting a series of “Stay Interviews” with their office staff. Each team member had a one-hour interview with human resources to find out why they are staying and what would encourage them to stick around. After the interviews and some changes based on the feedback, turnover—which had been rising—dropped to zero.
The 12 questions they asked in the interviews are below:
1. What is going really well with fellow team members?
2. How is the team responding to COVID?
3. What is the biggest challenge in your role (resources, managers, etc.)?
4. What one obstacle, if removed from your path, would make you most successful in your position?
5. Do you have enough support?
6. How did you feel about each of the below this year?
7. Do you have any additional comments on your total compensation package?
8. What would you like to see regarding each of the below in the future?
9. What does your career and succession plan look like?
10. Are you are mentoring anyone who shows promise/potential?
11. Safety is our number one core value. Do you feel like every team member of Kwest believes and shares in that core value?
12. Would you like to share any additional comments?
Of course, the success of any effort like this depends on how well management listens to and follows up on the suggestions. Katie noted that many of the team members’ suggestions could be addressed easily by the company, often in ways that were helpful across the board. She has generously offered to follow up with any of our members on the process. You can reach Katie at katiecoulson@kwestgroup.com.
To help with your own recruiting, include a link to the NCEO’s page Working at an ESOP Company in your recruiting packets.
Another great idea came from King Arthur Baking, the iconic 100% ESOP company in Vermont. Their Big Mistake Contest (BMC) is a fun, engaging and idea-generating exercise any company can copy. The BMC, they said, “is not about the big, game-over mistakes, it’s about the smaller ones. It’s an approach to develop a product or a process or a tool that even building a career that embraces lots of little experiments knowing that some will work and some will grow and others will fail or die.”
Employees were urged to start thinking about their BMC entry now with the following guidelines:
The BMC does several things. First, it makes it safe to make a mistake. Second, it teaches that the best ideas often come from what we learn from our mistakes. Finally, it gets people to identify problems. Finding the right problems is the biggest part of the battle to come up with better ideas.
A few of the other good ideas included the following:
● Our keynoter Haydee Caldero of Crepes-a-Latte said they hired a professional recruiter. They had relied on outside recruiters, but these recruiters did not have the same understanding of the company as an internal person has. They involved employees generally in the recruitment process so that everyone had skin in the game. When they did make an offer, it came from the team, not just from management.
● Another idea was providing extra pay for coming into work. As more companies offer remote work opportunities, those people who choose to (or have to) come to work incur costs that their remote colleagues don’t—for gas, clothing, childcare, etc. One company provided extra pay; another provided gas and clothing reimbursements.
● To help address childcare, a third company added a night shift for people who need to be home during the day to care for their children. This proved to be a very popular idea.
Have Other Great Ideas? Let us know – we’d love to share them.