Most ESOP companies mark ownership with a moment — a stock certificate handed across a conference table, a brief mention at an all-staff meeting, maybe some cake in the breakroom. Then it’s back to business as usual. For a lot of organizations, that moment comes once a year, and it’s expected to carry the full weight of what employee ownership means.
Here’s what we’ve learned after years of building ownership culture at Charleston Orwig Collective: that’s not enough. Not even close.
When Jennifer Guilette and David Refinski presented at the Wisconsin Chapter of The ESOP Association in March, they weren’t sharing theory. They were sharing what we’ve built from the inside: an ownership culture that shows up not just in June or October, but every single month. Because culture doesn’t sustain itself. You have to feed it.
The Committee That Actually Does Something
At the heart of our approach is a five-person ESOP Committee with staggered three-year terms and elected titles. We meet monthly — more often when big moments are approaching — and our mission goes beyond planning events. We’re here to give employee-owners a genuine voice in shaping where the company is headed and making it a place people actually want to be.
Jennifer has supported our ESOP for over seven years. David joined as an employee-owner in 2023. As committee veterans, they know firsthand that the committee only works if it stays connected to what employees actually care about. That means regular surveys, asking for help, and pulling in remote team members so no one is working at the margins.
Most ESOP committees meet quarterly to plan the annual meeting. Ours meets monthly because ownership thinking doesn’t happen on a quarterly schedule. According to research from the National Center for Employee Ownership, companies with active ownership cultures see higher productivity and retention rates — but only when that culture is reinforced consistently, not episodically.
Four Pillars, Twelve Months
We’ve built our culture around four pillars: education, recognition, communication, and fun and connection. These aren’t abstract values we put on posters. They’re distributed thoughtfully across the calendar rather than crammed into a single week.
In June, ESOP Week brings everyone together for a themed celebration tied to the annual stock announcement. We’ve done Olympics themes, music festivals — 2025’s ESOP-palooza was a hit. In October, ESOP Month sustains the momentum with four themed weeks: Own It, Learn It, Live It, and Celebrate It. These are designed to work equally well for in-office and remote employee-owners, because ownership culture can’t be geography-dependent.
Woven throughout the year are the smaller touches that make ownership feel real:
- Bi-weekly Team Huddles that blend updates with genuine connection
- A peer recognition program where employee-owners celebrate each other by name
- ESOP onboarding that starts on day one — not at the next annual meeting
- Monthly committee touchpoints that keep ownership thinking front and center
The consistency matters more than the budget. We’re showing up, month after month, with intention.
The Real Challenges Nobody Talks About
Sustaining ESOP culture isn’t without its challenges. Remote and hybrid teams add complexity; you can’t rely on breakroom conversations to carry the culture. And the sheer complexity of ownership concepts means you’re constantly translating financial and legal language into something that connects emotionally.
Our answer has been to balance education with celebration, big annual moments with smaller consistent touchpoints, and always make it personal. When we roll out the share price, we don’t just announce a number. We connect that number to what employee-owners actually did to earn it. We name projects, celebrate wins, and make the connection between ownership thinking and share value explicit.
According to The ESOP Association’s research on high-performing ESOPs, companies that communicate ownership value at least monthly see significantly higher participant understanding and engagement than those that communicate quarterly or annually. We’ve seen that play out in our own surveys. Employee-owners who feel connected to the culture are the ones who understand what their shares mean.
What We’d Tell Other ESOPs
You don’t need a big budget. You need consistency, creativity, and genuine care. Start with a committee that meets monthly, not quarterly. Survey your people to find out what actually resonates — don’t assume you know. Theme your events to keep them fresh, but don’t overthink it. A well-executed potluck with a clear ownership message beats an expensive gala that feels disconnected from daily work.
Make onboarding part of day one. New employee-owners shouldn’t wait six months to understand what they own. Build recognition into your regular cadence — peer-to-peer shoutouts, project wins tied to ownership thinking, anything that reinforces the connection between individual contribution and collective success.
And remember: ownership culture ultimately comes down to people feeling like they belong and that they matter. The mechanics of the ESOP — the valuations, the allocations, the repurchase obligation — those are important. But they’re not what makes someone think like an owner. What makes someone think like an owner is feeling like their voice shapes the direction of the company and their work contributes to something bigger than a paycheck.
We’re not perfect at this. Some months are stronger than others. Some initiatives land better than we expected, and some fall flat. But we keep showing up, keep asking employee-owners what they need, and keep building a culture that makes ownership more than a moment.
Because when every person in the building owns a piece of the outcome, your culture strategy is infrastructure, not optional. And infrastructure requires maintenance, investment, and a commitment to doing the work even when it’s not glamorous.
That’s what we’ve built at Charleston Orwig Collective. Not a perfect model, but a working one. And we’re sharing it because we believe other ESOPs deserve to see what’s possible when you stop treating ownership culture as an annual event and start treating it as a daily practice.