Here at Giroux we strongly believe that employee ownership improves our competitiveness, our productivity and the quality of every one of our projects. From August 8th to the 12th, Humberto Martinez and I attended the Employee Owner Retreat in Downers Grove/Chicago, Illinois. This was very interesting and helped us understand what an ESOP is and means to all of our fellow owners at Giroux Glass. What made this experience even more special is that we attended on a scholarship we won, and were able to squeeze in a bit of work-related sightseeing.
“We played an ESOP game where we were given a hypothetical company and given hypothetical scenarios. We took the company through three fiscal years and did a valuation each year to come up with the share price. It really helped me further understand the intricacies of an ESOP.” said Humberto (pictured far right). One interesting insight from Humberto was “I understood how an ESOP works in a more in-depth way, and also saw how ESOP’s vary from company to company. There were some that had thousands of employees enrolled in the plan across multiple offices worldwide. It was interesting to see how their plans worked and the methods they used to educate everyone about what an ESOP is.”
About the foundation itself: http://www.employeeownershipfoundation.org/whatsnew.html
About the retreat: https://www.esopassociation.org/meet-learn/meetings/employee-owner-retreat