Episode Transcript
Welcome to the Owner to Owner podcast with your host, Jesse Tyler, part of the EO Podcast Network. This is Jesse Tyler with the Owner to Owner Podcast. I do this podcast for Brett Keasling and the EO podcast Network to amplify ownership voices and have owner to owner conversations and bring the insight into the culture and the work experience of being an employee. Our hope is to continue to grow employee ownership nationally and specifically to the Owner to Owner podcast. It's bringing different voices that aren't necessarily really common in the national conversation about ownership, I'd like to focus on the rank and file the essential workers, a variety of roles, different companies with the real goal of bringing. Different voices of peers, different insights so people can hear themselves and other people's voices from other companies, others that they might never get to meet. And importantly, that ESOPs can learn from each other. People can listen to it while they're working. Hear it in the break room on their commute. So this episode is a little bit different. I always have two to three guests sharing their stories and insights. And this one I wanted to share some of my reflections. The honor of being the web industry's one of the speakers at their ownership day in in October. It was a great honor for me to be invited. Tom Dallas, nanny Avilia, and Michael Corey had invited me down to spend some time and share some thoughts and culture. I've spoken at the NCO and the DEA New England conferences, and so for me it was really a highlight of 15 years, and so I thought I would share. Some reflections from 15, almost 16 years of fascination and enjoyment with employee ownership culture. So what I wanna touch on are a little bit of background, so I know who I am and how I got to, why I'm so passionate about employee ownership. And then dig into a little bit where working at an employee-owned. Company can feel different right away, but yet defining how it feels and being able to describe it and feel very employee ownership, fluent can take a while. I think often two to three years, and just some of the things about my own values and the like. So again, shout out to Web Industries, a leading employee owner. Company do a great job with their culture. They're admired, and again, thoughts from being able to spend the day with them at their employee ownership day. So I am an example of, a good example of if you raise your hand and say yes, in the quiet moments, different things can happen and new opportunities that you, you might not have been able to seek out. You know, when we have new hires here at Hypertherm where I do the onboarding, some of the orientation work, I always say, you know, be easy to lead. raise your hand in the quiet moments cuz you might not know what will follow you. And I've done that. And so I've had nine roles so far at Hypotherm and I've actually only applied to three. So when you get a chance to have a different opportunity, even if you go over and down to go up, you're not really sure where it's gonna lead. Encourage folks. And so some of my background includes Bachelor of Fine Arts Creative Writing. So you were hearing the voice of evidence that creative writing majors. Make a good living and be able to retire on time. After I was in the Peace Corps, I was a cook, I was a production glass blower, second shift leader at Simon Pierce Glass Blowing in Vermont. I've been in sales marketing and I've been in HR for about half my career at Hypotherm now. So encouraging, uh, folks that if you're not sure. and you're curious. Raise your hand in a quiet moment. So my job, what is associate experience or employee experience? So, my role grew out of a research study in 2017. If you wanna look it up, it's IBM and Global Force, the Employee Experience Index. And they brought the different dimensions and aspects. What a worker employee experiences down to five dimensions. So see if these resonate for you. One sense of belonging, feeling part of a team, a group, organization. Two, purpose understanding why one's work matters. Three, achievement, a sense of accomplishment in the work that is done. Number four, iss. Pleasant feeling associated with your work and workplace. And fifth one is vigor. The presence of energy, enthusiasm, and excitement at work. And I think it speaks really well that the first two belonging and purpose align with what I believe are the core experience elements of employee ownership. So it's something to think about for you. For the listeners, what jumps out at you most, if you're gonna pick the two that resonate the most for you? Belonging, purpose, achievement, happiness, and. As the five dimensions of the experience as a worker. So a little bit of quick insight into the why I'm so passionate about. Employee ownership or yo culture and, and the meaning and why it matters so much to me is when I was a kid, my father shared the at times salty character, studs Turkel and his interest in working people and what they do all day and reaching the voices not usually heard. So a quote from Studs Turkel is work is about a search for the daily meaning as well as daily bread for recognition as well as, For astonishment rather than topo. Be short for a life, sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday, sort of dying that circle from working. People will talk about what they do all day and how they feel about what they do if it helps a little bit for an older word, not used to commonly today. Topo is a noun, means sluggish, inactivity or inertia, lethargic indifference, and a. So we wanna look for a life of astonishment rather than Turo as a, as a worker. So another voice that I expect EO fans will be expecting would be Louis Kelso. And, and a quote from him that I, I think of often is labor is a source of the subsistence. Capital is a source of affluence. My idea is to make everyone a capitalist and therefore financially secure. Louis Kelso. So I think about that and combine the Louis Kelso quote with something a Tim Garske communications director at the N C E O said at a conference early this year, and he, and he asked, you know, what is the median retirement fund account balance for us? and people were guessing, you know, 50,000, 60,000, things like that. And, and his big reveal was, you know, the reminder that it's zero because less than half of American workers have any retirement savings. So I think it's really the combination of both Stead Circle and Lu Kelso where it's that, that daily experience, but also the long-term wealth. And so it's just something, so I asked the group at, at Web Industries, you know, what's the age that you wanna retire at? And it's a very interesting conversation cause a lot of people can't think of retiring at 62 and 67 and 65 though that range where when you're at a successful employee-owned company and the employee owners are also. Making the right choices for four contributions and, and lifestyle and the like that a lot of ESOPs have a really unusual problem in the American workforce, and that many retire before they're 65. And that's a, that's a beautiful problem for. Companies to have. So to bring it a little bit closer to Hypertherm, I've asked a lot of people, I've onboarded over a thousand people, and part of that onboarding intensive cultural immersion may ask, what does ownership mean to you? How does your work and team and role impact our customers? And what's amazing is can have people go through that program on their. Week, just the way schedules fall. Best practices the first 90 days. But feedback has always been, I, I wanna go through that. I, I would love to have gone through this sooner. So just the way it works sometimes they'll go through this two day culture intensive business market products, ethics, discommunication styles, meet the management team. And what is just amazing is, The statements from somebody on their first week are indistinguishable from somebody who's been here 5, 10, 20 years who is doing the statements during ownership month. You can't, you can't pull them out. And I just find that amazing. And I've come to believe after 15 years plus of. Focusing on employee ownership and culture and experience that the, the owners walk in. The mindset is there already in the person, but a few seem to have it and certainly many more seem to aspire to it. But there's a lot of beautiful discovery along the way to, for people and that, you know, to see people kind of develop that and for that to come out and of all the quotes. Many, many quotes over the years. Coworker Naomi has my, my all time favorite, and this is from Naomi. My current role in maintenance impacts the customer because I recycle or spin machining process, metaled ships, uh, to get the machining oil off. So I, I save on waste and that is important to me. The ecological environment, the future of the world. We live in the future, generations to come. So I always, I always smile. I quite hear my voice smiling cause I think of Kennedy quote. And during a visit to NASA Space Center in 1962, president Kennedy noticed a janitor carrying a broom and he interrupted his tour, walked over to the. Janitor and said, hi, I'm Jack Kennedy, what are you doing? And the janitor responded, well, Mr. President, I'm helping put a man on the moon. So I have Naomi's quote saved with a snapshot of the President Kennedy quote. I just see that, you know, the, the broader view of the bigger picture and thinking beyond and find that really inspiring. So specific to employee ownership culture, you can't tell it. You can't tell any culture. You have to give folks time. Provide some insights, maybe some reasonable directions, turn signals and maps, so to speak. But I, I kind of laugh with our culture at Hypertherm. You know, we're almost 55 years, we've been a successful company and we're into our 21st year of ownership, and I sort of joke around that, you know, thank you for accepting your job offer. We're enthusiastic about our ownership culture, but the reality is you need to feel it and experience it. We know we can't tell you culture, but some of us can't help ourselves. So you know, what do you do if you have a bunch of people? Really in sync that are, you know, grateful for the job quality, the security, the long-term financial benefits with esop. Uh, working at a place where you like who you work for, which is a huge priority for, for workers in these times, and that's reflected in surveys. How do you welcome people in and, and not be too much? We have new hires come in. They'll say that, you know, their last job they, they were hired and told to just listen for the first six months. And it's interesting cause people want their voice to matter. They wanna be heard, but sometimes well we're not the only esop, but sometimes the enthusiasm for helping them get started and being successful sometimes is in its own regard. Something for new hires to get used to. And one of that all. Favorite references to that was a earlier owner to owner podcast episode with Web Industries where one of 'em had said that new hires are future new hires are. Retirement, they're precious and we need to respond to them that way. I just don't have, I've mentioned that many times since. I really appreciate that. So, if you're new to employee ownership or don't have a a, you're, you're sort of curious, listening to the podcast don't have a lot of exposure, what does employee ownership culture sound like? What's the big, what's the big deal, I guess you'd say? And I think it really, you know, boils down to. Words that I've heard across shifts, cross roles, cross tenure, cross education, that my voice matters. And so the equation of having a sense of safety and trust and being trusted, and then you add a simple and inclusive ideas process, you can end up with boundless safety profit, ef. Work experience, quality ideas, and so I, I generalize with continuous improvement. It's, it's something in employee ownership culture that defines it best. You can hear it, you can see it, you can measure it, you can track it. but it was based on my voice matters and I and I get to ask questions or consider to have input. That can be really amazing. So if you're considering continuous improvement process or culture, we, we encourage you strongly. It can be incredibly powerful, far beyond how it impacts your customers. It's a sense of engagement, a sense of being valued, and you can systematize that in some pretty reasonable ways. And there's a lot of advice on how to do that. But we have a very mature program and it's so. For sure that we're known for. And if you'd like an insider's tip when you're setting up a continuous improvement process and try to embolden that in your culture. Peer pressure is not a bad term. Peer pressure drives successful continuous improvement. It is not up to the leaders to push or pull. It's up to the leaders. To say it simply is to protect time for those that are not used to being empowered, to have that impact, to do their work, learn, make some mistakes, try, try again, but you'll know you have a successful continuous improvement culture feeding your EO culture. When you can observe that the peer pressure drives it, and that can look like or sound like. People aren't putting their ideas in the database, the others on the team or cross team will, will nudge them along and say, Hey, that was a great idea. Did you put it in the database? And, um, the leaders can lead and the peers can drive some of that change. So I've had a lot of fun over the last, uh, it's been almost a couple years now with over 30 episodes of the Owner to Owner podcast. I ask a. Similar questions and get, there's certainly some recurring themes, but you know, the big question, what does ownership mean to you? Having asked probably a couple thousand people over conferences and the podcast and onboarding and ownership projects, never gotten the same answer. It's unique. It's a, it's a fingerprint, it's a. Identity and it evolves, but it's just been just been amazing to, I love asking that question because there's always going to be a unique and different answer, so I'm wanna throw in some insight. I was thinking about, okay, the ownership sounds good. We talked to ESOPs nationally and. Little budding progress internationally with, with, that's starting to take up. What is the hard part? What's, what's, what's the catch I guess somebody would ask and I think the, after all these years, I think the single hardest part of an active ownership culture is feeling like you can say, no, you, there's, there's always a dimmer switch or a knob. There's not a flip on or flip off like a traditional light switch. You, it is not gonna fly. in a healthy employee-owned company to hear, not my job. Go figure it out. Don't speak up for six months or until you prove yourself. And I think that is something that is worth recognizing cuz you need to stay on your core tasks and your plan and get your work done. But we're also in this together for the daily experience, the job, you know, the job quality and security and the long term potential wealth building with the esop. So I think flexibility is absolutely vital. Always keeping your eye in the long term gain, but really having some understanding and being willing to navigate that. It can be very difficult in a high volume, high pressure environment to not have that sense that it's okay to say no. And I think one of the other aspects, the other hardest aspect, I certainly see people learning at our ESOP and, and it comes. When talking to other employee-owned companies is that there'd be so many voices that because people's voices do matter, you know, finding those reasonable, what are the reasonable limits with that? And when is a decision made it can, you know, decision making you be bogged down if there's. There's a lot of input and finding that balance. You know, I really appreciate your input. I need to make this decision. We need to move forward. I'm accountable working in some of that language and even just talking about that potentially being a challenge and a culture, right? That everybody's voice matters. How do we move forward expeditiously. And, and, and honor that. So if I were to share my three top three ownership values in this moment today, I think it, it, it would be boiled down to, for me, my common question for, for owner to owner podcast guests would be trust, flexibility, and care. I'd say to our new associates that we really run hyper. Upon trust and care. And I think that there, there's a lot to be said for that, but I think that's actually some of the, it can be some of the, the harder work to do and to have, to have, to have that enduring flexibility. and extending trust almost right away to, to new teammates and or if you switch to a new team. Flexibility is is absolutely required, and that's in the best of times and the fun times. So I'd say I, the top three values are the, uh, trust, flexibility, and care. And I had a, I had a fun exchange with Corey Rosen from the N C E O or entering after. Last conference and I had dialed down, tried to, tried to boil down for him. If I could say four. Four elements of play. Ownership would be sense of belonging. My voice matters. I'm feeling part of something bigger. Job security, shared values, and I shared this on my thoughts, my evolving thoughts on LinkedIn, and had some fun pings back and had to add Cam. It really comes down to, do you enjoy the people you work with? Do you trust the people you work with? Are you willing to lean into the, the harder conversations that are needed to move your shared company forward? So those are some thoughts, and to bring it back to web, part of their, their yo day that, that really stayed with me was looking glass exercise. and I've been thinking about it on and off since. And, and two other questions were, you know, how would our culture be different if we had not become an esop? It's really interesting to look at here at Hypertherm and talk to other employee owners at at their companies, cuz some have experienced transitioning from private company to an esop, but a lot of us started working at an esop. It's interesting to look, you know, and for the listeners, how different would your culture. If your company had not become an esop, and then maybe even more ground level of what would be different about working here and, and have those discussions. So to share the wisdom of the web day and their exercise with a broader audience of listeners. I thought I'd put that out there. So appreciate the listening, the support from all the listeners and the opportunity to, to amplify employee ownership. It's been a wonderful adventure for almost 16 years, and I hope for many more years after that. The more that we can talk and amplify employee ownership by employee owned work, you know, anything around worker equity, you know, worker co-ops and beyond, it does moves our country forward in a really positive way and. Can take a remarkable wealth building opportunity in the long term to be a daily experience where there's a sense of security, a sense of belonging. So I appreciate your letting me share the the thoughts what I shared with the wonderful web industries crew. This is Jesse Tyler for the Owner to Owner podcast for the EEO Podcast Network. Thanks for your support and listening. We'd love to hear from you. You can find us on Facebook at EO Podcast Network and on Twitter at ESOP podcast. This podcast has been produced by Brett Keesling for the EO Podcast Network. Original music composed by Max Keesling, branding and Marketing by Bitsy Plus Design. And I'm Bitsy McCann.
