employee ownership esop and employee engagement

Oligopolies in plain sight

Posted On: November 4, 2022 by Mike Mallaro in: Employee Ownership, Opinions, Social commentary

A judge blocked the merger of two book publishing companies after the US regulators objected to the merger on the grounds of it being anti-competitive and harmful. While that’s probably true, it strikes me like your kid eating two Big Macs, fries, pecan pie with ice cream and one potato chip – and you complain about chip being unhealthy. In many important segments of our economy, a handful of companies control the market. Cloud computing has only three players, who just so happen...

Celebrating ESOP Month

Posted On: October 29, 2021 by Mike Mallaro in: Employee Ownership, Social commentary, VGM, Work Culture

October is ESOP month. An ESOP is an employee stock ownership plan that gives workers equity ownership in the company in which they work. Our company, VGM Group, is a 100% ESOP, which means that all its stock is owned by our employees. There are 6,200 ESOP owned companies in the U.S., with about half of those being 100% ESOPs. Employee-ownership was initially conceived by Benjamin Franklin as a fair way for workers to benefit from the value of their labor, a way for those...

Win with great team players

Posted On: September 21, 2020 by Mike Mallaro in: Employee Ownership, Social commentary, VGM, Work Culture

The other day I clicked on the link to a video of a basketball game played 40 years ago – and had an epiphany - mostly the best teams win, not the team with the best player(s). The game was Iowa vs. Georgetown, with the winner going to the Final Four. The Iowa team had no all-Big Ten players that year. Of their five leading scores that game, four never played a minute in the NBA, and the one that did was a...

Tags: team, team players, vgm

Great Teams

Posted On: July 13, 2020 by Mike Mallaro in: Employee Ownership, Social commentary, VGM, Work Culture

The summer when I was twelve I played on the Gibson Red Sox baseball team. Our team finished the season with a record of zero wins and sixteen losses. We were what our record said we were. Today most of us are part of teams – maybe a company, a department, a family or a community group. We each have a job to do as part of a team, with individual job duties and responsibilities. But perhaps more importantly, we each have an...

Ownership

Posted On: May 22, 2020 by Mike Mallaro in: Employee Ownership, Opinions, Social commentary, Work Culture

Renting has its advantages. No commitment. No investment. Free from entanglements. Owning on the other hand, requires investment. It means putting something at risk. Ownership comes with commitment, obligation and responsibility. You might say ownership requires you to be all-in. When it comes to your career and your life, ownership is worth the investment. In fact, it’s the only way to go. Employee-ownership of business is the pathway to career and personal fulfillment. Further,...

Power of One Principle – Make a Difference 

Posted On: May 11, 2020 by Mike Mallaro in: Employee Ownership, VGM, Work Culture

Few things in life are more satisfying than knowing that you’ve made a difference. No matter our role – employee, leader, parent, competitor, volunteer – making a difference must always...

Power of One Principle – Welcome Change

Posted On: May 4, 2020 by Mike Mallaro in: Employee Ownership, VGM, Work Culture

The pace of change has never been faster, and it will never be this slow again. Innovation will continue, customer demands will evolve and disruption of all sorts will continue, including a pandemic. As Darwin famously said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” Our sixth Power of One Principle encourages all of us to be adaptable, be curious, adopt a growth mindset, and remain open to new ideas...

Tags: Power Of One

A Message to VGM Employee Owners: Create Your Future

Posted On: April 23, 2020 by Mike Mallaro in: Employee Ownership, VGM, Work Culture

A stressed case manager in Springfield is looking to send out a referral on a complicated injured worker case. We can help. A guy in the New York suburbs is waiting on the CPAP cleaner he ordered. We’ll get it there. A practice in Montgomery is looking to secure insurance coverage to protect their business. We have a solution. A DME in Minneapolis has put out respiratory equipment and is hoping it gets collected today and paid to them tomorrow. We’re on it. A firm in Dubuque...

The Power of One: Provide Meaningful, Memorable Service

Posted On: April 22, 2020 by Mike Mallaro in: Employee Ownership, VGM, Work Culture

Customers demand compelling solutions to solve their challenges and relieve their burdens, provided at a fair price. It’s easy in business to get hung up on the transaction part of the equation, and forget what makes your offering compelling. If the best reason that we give people to do business with us is that we offer the best price, then the relationship that we have with them is merely transactional. Here at VGM, we strive to create a community for our customers to belong to, where we...

The Power of One: Protect Our Company

Posted On: April 19, 2020 by Mike Mallaro in: Employee Ownership, VGM, Work Culture

Being a business owner isn’t easy. If it were, I suppose everyone would do it. There’s a lot of risk that comes with owning a business instead of just working for one, and a lot of hard work and sleepless nights that go into protecting what you’ve worked so hard to build. If you want to continue serving your customers and offering them solutions, then you need to be vigilant against the things that might stop you from doing that. In our business, the most obvious threat is cybercrime....