Buehlers Fresh Foods

8 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 4 Buehler’s Fresh Foods management team needed to quickly learn the ESOP process, implementation timeline and the legal and regulatory requirements. . ESOPs follow very strict rules and are subject to Department of Labor audits. Yvonne Monea, vice president of human resources, said “this education was important because not all ESOP plans are structured the same. There are differences in details such as who is eligible to participate, vesting, and valuation. Finally, decisions related to funding and paying participants as they leave the company can be very confusing. “ In the background, Buehler’s team needed to review a significant amount of contracts and leases with IT systems, payroll teams, banking relationships, benefits, and human resource business partners. On October 18, 2017 E&H Family group publicly announced the sale of Buehler’s supermarkets to its employees. The transaction closed on November 5th. The communication to suppliers and employees was important, as well as interest BUEHLER ’ S FRESH FOODS from our customers. Senior management held an meeting with all the supervisors, management of stores and corporate office to explain the transition of ownership and ESOP basics. They then formed “Train the Trainers” team. The team held multiple meetings at all the locations. , Each year they continue to provide employee meetings. Yvonne Monea noted, “Information was made available via a hub hosted on an online HRIS (Human Resources Information System) system, which contained all the information about the ESOP.” Jen Hudson, director of marketing said, “Multiple channels of communication were utilized by the management team for constant reminders of the transition. One example was updating employee uniforms to include the statement “An Employee Owned Company”. This language was carried through the company’s marketing by incorporating “an employee owned company” into logos, weekly adverts, signage, and more.