Business View Magazine - July 2023

48 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 7 companies transitioning to a new model. “The curve for the count of ESOP companies is pretty flat, but the count for the number of ESOP participants is definitely up,” he suggests, adding that he expects to see a shift in the next set of data. “It hasn’t shown up in the numbers yet, but I think for the last two years, we’ve seen companies feel like they got through COVID, and maybe there’s an owner who held on for another couple of years, just to make sure the business survived. Now they decide it is time to sell to the employees. I think once the next couple rounds of numbers show up, we’re going to see a nice big increase in that trend line, for both ESOPs and the other forms of employee ownership.” In terms of future initiatives, Rodgers outlines three areas of focus for NCEO. Firstly, a continued commitment to robust in-house research, revealing significant findings such as employee owners having 92% greater net household wealth compared to non-employee owners. Positive developments in legislation at the state and federal levels are also on the radar, along with the growing network of organizations and resources dedicated to promoting employee ownership such as the recent partnership with the Employee Ownership Expansion Network. “We’ve got this great combination where they’re on the ground, right there where business owners are when they’re thinking about who ought to own their businesses after them. They’ve got all of our resources, our research, all those publications. We think that’s going to be an explosive combination, and really up the game for getting the word out about employee ownership,” he concludes.