This commentary is by Brady Fox of Winooski. He is an engineer in the leadership development program at PC Construction in South Burlington.
I recently heard about a report from Gallup that found overall job satisfaction across America has matched a record low and employees are seeking new jobs at the highest rate since 2015. Workers have grown so frustrated by their jobs that Gallup has even given this moment a name — the “Great Detachment.”
I have a lot of sympathy for my peers who are unmotivated at work, but feel incredibly fortunate that I can’t relate.
That’s because after graduating with an engineering degree from the University of Vermont, I landed a job at PC Construction, a 100% employee-owned company based in South Burlington. I’ve been there for two-and-a-half years, and outside of a year in high school making sandwiches at a fast-food joint, it’s the only job I’ve known.
My experience can’t be further from Gallup’s Great Detachment. When I first arrived at PC, I was just happy to have found a job in my chosen field of study. A human resources representative told me that as part of my benefits package, I would participate in the employee stock ownership program, or ESOP, a retirement plan that provides a tax incentive for companies to share potential rewards with all their employees.
I honestly had no idea what that meant. As a 21-year-old fresh out of college, retirement was far off, not something I was thinking about. And it’s difficult to get excited about something that’s 40 to 50 years away.
But there was something I did understand right away, especially in contrast to many of my friends who constantly complained about their jobs: being an owner of the company where you work is just different. Immediately, I sensed a spirit of collaboration, equality and encouragement of growth that stemmed from our shared ownership in the company.
I signed up for the company’s leadership development program, a multi-year initiative that gives new hires an opportunity to rotate across different areas of the company before settling on an area of focus. I spent six months as an estimator, three months in purchasing and six months as an office engineer. I’m now in my final rotation, at a water treatment plant we’re building in Virginia, where I’m shadowing a field engineer and learning how to be a superintendent on a project.
I was just talking to a buddy of mine who said his company eliminated Christmas bonuses last year, without explanation. Folks had grown to expect the bonus as part of their compensation packages, were angry about the change and, and many plan to leave as a result.
By contrast, our books at PC are open to every employee owner. We see what goes into our stock price, how much revenue we take in, how bonuses are calculated and how much coworkers are making at each level. The transparency creates a level of trust and builds community. We have superiors like any other company, but being an employee owner means we’re working for ourselves as much as them. It’s a very cool feeling for a young person. Work doesn’t have to suck.
I don’t know how this tradition started, but whenever we win a new project, we come together for a celebration and eat chicken wings. It’s a good feeling of camaraderie and community that people look forward to. And, of course, there’s our ESOP statements. When you see it grow over a couple of years, it encourages you to do even better work.
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.
