2 min read

Special Sauce = Engagement

Mar 27, 2013 9:00:00 AM

Our President & CEO, Tim Leman, recently wrote in his executive blog about the terrific news Gibson received a few weeks ago being named a Best Places to Work in Indiana firm. We had applied for this distinction twice before and were not successful either time. Why did we succeed this year when we had failed twice in the same endeavor?

I believe it’s our “special sauce”

By our special sauce, I am referring to the incredible magic that happens when you offer an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) for your employee-teammates, and how it impacts their engagement. Within Gibson, our ESOP is called GESOP (Gibson’s ESOP), and we created it at the end of 2010.

We’ve always been 100% employee-owned – meaning prior to the GESOP, we had about a dozen employee stockholders/owners of our firm’s shares. Since the GESOP, we still have our “Sub S” owners, but now the GESOP owns a significant portion of our shares. The GESOP represents ownership by each and every teammate at Gibson.

At first, some of our folks didn’t grasp that they now had a slice of the ownership of our company. They may have even been skeptical of ‘why we would do such a thing?’ But through education and communication many “got it”. And it’s no coincidence that our results each of the past two years have been amazing. Why?

Engagement is higher than it’s ever been here at Gibson. There’s a pride that permeates through our teams when they start thinking of themselves as owners, and that this is their company. It may sound a little cheesy but when you can tell a client or prospective client that every time they interact with someone at Gibson, they’re being served by an owner - that’s powerful!

And that strength is evident when our teammates tell others how engaged they are and how much they like building a career at a firm where they are an owner. It’s evident in our results. Greater engagement manifests itself in the confidential survey feedback our teammates provided to the Indiana Chamber initiative. Feedback that is good enough to be named a Best Places to Work in Indiana company.

Employee ownership - a significant part of Gibson’s engagement – the special sauce if you will. It’s part of our recipe for success. Maybe an ESOP could be right for your firm?

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Topics: ESOP
Gibson

Written by Gibson

Gibson is a team of risk management and employee benefits professionals with a passion for helping leaders look beyond what others see and get to the proactive side of insurance. As an employee-owned company, Gibson is driven by close relationships with their clients, employees, and the communities they serve. The first Gibson office opened in 1933 in Northern Indiana, and as the company’s reach grew, so did their team. Today, Gibson serves clients across the country from offices in Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Utah.