ProAct, Inc., a fully integrated pharmacy benefit management (PBM) company, is a subsidiary of employee-owned KPH Healthcare Services, Inc., one of the largest ESOP companies in the country. In 2022, the company decided to send a handful of employees on “ESOP road trips” as an educational opportunity and a way to provide further context to newer employee-owners about what it means to be at an ESOP company. For all of these visits, Dani Green, an employee-owner in her second year of service at the company, and several of her colleagues documented their trips and what they learned in a vlog series for everyone at ProAct to view at their leisure.
Kayse Diamond, one of ProAct's ownership culture ambassadors, says that though the employee-owners still feel like they are in the early stages of their culture journey, the vlog has been one of their biggest accomplishments to date. Kayse says that not only do they get to see what others are doing and how those great practices might serve ProAct, but also hopes that what they are doing is helping other ESOPs and the whole community. “We are super passionate about employee ownership,” says Kate Johnson, and the trio hope to share what they learn the same way these companies have opened their own doors to them.
Kayse Diamond and Dani Green both played a part in creating the vlog series and decided to call it “Sweet Chats + Salty Snacks: The ESOP Exploration” as a way to spread the value of these opportunities to as many people as possible. Fellow ESOP companies are also welcome to view their videos on YouTube and are encouraged to join in on the fun. Kayse notes that they considered a podcast, but the team wanted to do something different from what has been done so far. Kate shared that the videos are now some of the most popular types of communication they share on the company's LinkedIn page. In the vlog, they share details about their visit, as well as the people and employee-owners they meet along the way. The videos are short, fun, and, most important, give viewers a personal touch of ownership that a series of slides may fall short on. It is a great reminder that even the newest participants in your ESOP can make a positive impact and aid in the learning of their friends and colleagues.
Dani is both new to ESOPs and relatively new to working in large corporate settings like this. She says that the experience has been extremely valuable to her personally. In fact, Dani has not even seen multiple ESOP account statements yet this early in her career, but says “the experience has been such a fun journey and has allowed me to dive right in and experience the ESOP excitement…the loyalty and amount of community the companies have built is incredible to see, because it shows that the business is so much more than just a company.” What the ownership culture ambassadors are doing at ProAct with creative forms of media use, communication, and community engagement are strategies we will see a lot more of in the coming years, especially at companies of KPH's size. The experience and learning of this handful of employees can be shared widely with thousands of employee-owners and company managers. Thankfully, these types of communication tools are becoming more common and much easier to use or learn, allowing employee-owners to engage others throughout the company with just their smartphones.
Dani and friends have also made visits to companies like Harpoon Brewery, Hypertherm, Nordon Plastics, Mower, and Cooley Group. The vlogs include visuals, either pictures or additional videos, that show you what something like an “ideas board” looks like at companies like Harpoon Brewery. With thousands of employees, any number of division leads can see these types of details—idea boards covered with employees' ideas and their pictures next to it—and emulate it in their own work groups if they are feeling so inspired.
When asked what excited her most about the year to come at ProAct, Kate said: “I’m just excited to be able to work in a place where we can pretty much try anything. We didn’t have to go through various level of approval to start our vlog idea and see how it went; the company has been so good about letting us give these ideas a whirl and see where it goes.”