Business View Magazine - May 2024

of the ESOP, WESTPAK employs a “drip irrigation” approach, offering information in manageable doses. “It has to be a consistent message,” Crivello begins, “a little bit of information consistently over time. You can give everybody all the information at once, but they’ll become saturated.” So, to avoid confusion and overwhelm, WESTPAK deploys several clever and subtle initiatives to help communicate the ESOP’s value. The company has a committee that kick-starts initiatives like employee-owner of the month, employee ownership awareness month in October, and the stock release that usually follows 6 months later. Additionally, the company hosts quarterly owner summits, practices open book management, and consistently shares its financials with the team. Crivello says “New members to our team are astounded that we share the financial results with the team because it isn’t a ‘normal’ business operation, but it’s become second nature for us to do so. Employee ownership can be thought of as a three-legged stool with the three legs being 1) teaching financial literacy 2) sharing the financials and 3) giving a stake in the outcome. These are the foundations of employee ownership.” According to Crivello, one of the most beneficial things the company has done for itself is to invest in a company called Certified EO. This organization provides training materials, infographics, PowerPoint presentations, games, a wealth calculator, etc. to employee-owned companies. To stay aligned with the “drip irrigation” approach, WESTPAK has leveraged Certified EO the most for resources like posters and infographics to provide employees with a consistent visual reminder of the ESOP’s value to them as owners with a vested interest. This method acknowledges how iterative a process 113 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 11, ISSUE 05 WESTPAK