What does being vested in the ESOP mean to you? Are you fully vested?
I am now a fully vested member of the ESOP. This is a significant milestone in my time with the company. It’s a great feeling to know that the effort that I have put in each day to earn my ownership into our company is paying off. Seeing the difference on my statement from being 60% or 80% vested to 100% vested is really meaningful.
How does being in an ESOP affect your day-to-day work?
We have heard many of our team talk about this. However, it really does adjust your mindset to know that everything you do, every interaction you have has an opportunity to positively impact the overall success of our company. For me, every decision that I make, interaction I have, or project that I’m working on is viewed through that lens. The lens that each situation, has the opportunity to positively impact my fellow employee owners and our company. It’s just truly a different mindset than any other organization I have ever been a part of.
What is something new you have learned about an ESOP since being part of one?
We partner with an outstanding organization called Certified EO that helps us educate our staff and other partners about the value of employee ownership. A great tool they provide is a wealth calculator. You can input some basic information about your compensation, some estimated benefits and time to retirement and get a projected value of your ESOP account at retirement. It’s really quite amazing to see the growth potential of our company’s contributions to each of us over time and how it can impact our retirement plans in the future. I’m extremely grateful to be a part of an employee-owned organization.
