Nancy Wiefek
All businesses face challenges in recruiting and retaining employees; however, there are very few sources focused solely on how ESOPs deal with these issues and how they use employee ownership specifically as leverage.
Nancy Wiefek
A new research paper, Employee Share Ownership, Management Practices, and Labor Productivity: An Analysis Using Establishment Level Micro-Data from the U.S. Census, addresses long-standing questions about ESOPs and productivity. The research team, led by Fidan Ana Kurtulus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, compiled the largest and most comprehensive data to date on broad-based employee ownership at both privately held and publicly traded US manufacturing companies. Specifically, they combined three restricted US Census micro-databases—the 2010 and 2015 Census Management and Organizational Practices Survey (MOPS), the American Survey of Manufacturers (ASM), and the US Longitudinal Business Database (LBD)—with the US Department of Labor’s Form 5500 Private Pension Plan (PPP) database.
Nancy Wiefek
The Department of Labor has posted the latest filings data, which covers plan year 2023. The data includes a total of 6,609 ESOPs filing for 2023, covering 15.1 million participants holding over $2 trillion in total assets.
Nancy Wiefek
The 2025 ESOP Corporate Governance Survey report is available. This survey report includes comprehensive data on board policies and practices, trustee types, and other governance topics along with demographic questions. The NCEO has conducted surveys on ESOP companies' corporate governance since 2005. Our 2025 survey received responses from 556 ESOP companies in May–June 2025.
Nancy Wiefek
The National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS), sponsored by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, are nationally representative surveys that follow the same sample of individuals from specific birth cohorts over time. Our research uses data from a sample first interviewed in 1997 and biennially ongoing.
Nancy Wiefek
The NCEO research team, looking at available data from the last few years, recently completed a detailed analysis of the breadth and depth of the retirement crisis facing the US workforce. The analysis shows not only what many American workers are lacking in retirement savings but also the potential impact of ESOPs in filling that gap.
Nancy Wiefek
Research Associate Matt Mazewski from the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing at Rutgers has completed an analysis of US Census data on how many privately held firms in the US are “good candidates” for conversion to employee ownership through an ESOP or worker cooperative. He draws upon the US Census Bureau’s Annual Business Survey, County Business Patterns, and Economic Census.
Nancy Wiefek
We've just released this year's EO 100, our annual list of the largest broad-based employee-owned companies in the US. Most are ESOP-owned, and one is a cooperative. To be on the list, companies must be at least 50% employee-owned; most on the list are 100%. Collectively, these broad-based plans cover over 655,000 people.
Nancy Wiefek
ESOP companies know that helping employees feel like an owner is key to getting the best outcomes. Still, creating that feeling in day-to-day operations is a complex task requiring more than just putting high-performance management practices in place. Companies must also create positive feelings and a connection to the company. This mindset can give ESOP companies a unique advantage over traditional companies.
