October is ESOP Month at CNE!
It’s October, and we are excited to celebrate ESOP month at CNE. Being part of our CNE Family has many undeniable benefits; among them is being an employee-owner. Today we want to expand on what it means to be an ESOP.
ESOP stands for Employee Stock Ownership Plan. Each year, the company engages an independent firm to review our performance and value our company. Following that event, we announce the new stock value. Employees hold the value of their accumulated distributions in the form of a retirement plan, which is in addition to the 401(k) plan to which the company also contributes through a match. When the company stock value increases, so does the value of the employee ESOP retirement account.
About 14 million Americans are in ESOPs, which hold over $1.5 trillion in equity. Because of the way ESOPs are structured, ESOPs inherently allocate resources more evenly than almost any other government incentives for wealth-building, including 401(k) plans and tax incentives for home ownership, small business loans, tax incentives for corporations, and many, many more.
More than just an excellent option for our retirement portfolios, being an ESOP means every employee-owner shares in the success of the company. This connection to company success provides every one a very direct motivation to bring our very best effort to our work.
Furthermore, studies have validated that participants in ESOP plans accumulate 2.2 times the retirement assets of employees in other retirement plans and infinitely more than the roughly half of the non-government working population that has no retirement plan at all. Data on millennials from the National Longitudinal Surveys of the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveal that the median household net wealth among respondents in employee ownership plans was 92% higher for employee-owners than for non-employee owners.
Being an ESOP encourages us to think like an invested business owner and to make the most of our role to help the company flourish. Also, as employee-owners, we have accountability to the company and to each other, which instinctively encourages us to work as a team. Everything we accomplish together is a benefit to all of us
This month we will be celebrating our ESOP and our employee-owners with education on the benefits of employee ownership and with fun activities to continue to nurture our growing team. Be sure to follow us on Facebook to keep up with all the fun and to learn more about being an ESOP!
We would love to see you at CNE! Check out all our available positions and discover your passion today!