Need suggestions for promoting ESOP

Lori B

We are privately held company and offer an ESOP. The stock has done nothing but grow and the plan is a tremendous benefit. Sadly, most of our ees have no concept of the value of this plan or even how it works. The SPD reads like Greek. The plan only has an annual valuation date, so ees are only seeing statements once per year. The result: the plan is misunderstood and ees are clueless of the value the rest of the year. I'd be very interested to know if other ESOP companies have ideas for how they communicated the plan and promoted/marketed it to their ees. Thanks.

KDowney

My company doesn't have an ESOP plan, so I can't help you out too much with tips.

You might want to check out these websites though, they can probably offer some good advice:

[url]http://www.esopassociation.org/[/url]
[url]http://www.nceo.org/esops/index.html[/url]

franfields

I would be interested as well. We are also an ESOP and have run into the same situation, the employee/owners not understanding what it means. Some think it means they should be making all the decisions and get frustrated because they aren't asked, others think it is not a benefit since they never wanted to be owners of a company, and others are just plain oblivious to it.

I have purchased pamphlets from the ESOP Association which I give to all new hires but they soon forget. The only time it seems to hit home is when they are about to leave and find out how much money they will get in return for their stock.

Ruskanen

We don't have a stock program, but we seem to get the same confusion and lack of interest from our insurance programs and our 401k. You could try stapeling short memos to their paycheks to pique interest. For example, we sent out a memo informing employees who they had listed as beneficiaries on life insurance. Many had been married, divorced, had children, or their children were old enough not be dependents anymore. Employees that wanted to make chanages came to us and we had them fill out the form.

You could send a memo that says, "Did you know that if you had company stock you would have earned an extra $xx amount of dollars today? To find out more, see Human Resources." Figure out who your audience is, and speak to their level of interest and in a language they understand. They may not need all the complicated details. Stick straight to the facts. Advantages and disadvantages, extra charges, withdrawal options, etc.