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Panel Proposals

Culture and Engagement

Ownership 365: Strategies for Year Round Engagement

Wednesday, April 8, 2026
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM CDT
Location: Baird Ballroom F
CE: 1
CE Type: SHRM
Education Level: For All Levels
Employee ownership is more than a retirement benefit, it’s a powerful cultural force that can drive engagement, retention, and performance. Yet too often, ESOPs are treated as once-a-year share price reveal events, or only focused on ESOP Month, leaving employee-owners disconnected from the value and meaning of their ownership. This session is designed to change that.
Join us for a dynamic and practical exploration of how to build year-round engagement with your ESOP by forming a dedicated employee ownership team, creating a strategic calendar of events, and celebrating key milestones that matter to employee-owners. We’ll walk through how to identify and empower influential employees to serve as employee ownership team members. You’ll learn how to structure a calendar that blends education with celebration, including events like share price announcements, vesting recognitions, plan entry welcomes, and social gatherings that reinforce ownership culture.
Whether your company is new to employee ownership or looking to reinvigorate your ESOP communications, this session will provide actionable strategies and real-world examples to help you build momentum and deepen engagement.

To create an engaging learning experience, we’ll use a mix of storytelling, interactive discussion, and practical tools that participants can take back to their organizations. Attendees will leave with a customizable framework for building their own employee ownership team, a sample calendar of events, and ideas for celebrating milestones in meaningful ways.

NCEO Publication: Beyond Engagement
NCEO Peer Networking: Innovative Communication Coalition

Learning Objectives:

  1. Design a year-round engagement calendar that aligns with your mission and values and includes at least three types of events—educational, social, and milestone celebrations—to reinforce ownership culture and increase ESOP awareness across the organization.
  2. Provide examples of practical engagement ideas that you can adapt and implement within your own organization to strengthen employee-owner connection to the ESOP, either as individual events or as part of annual programming.
  3. Identify the key roles, characteristics, and budgets of an effective employee ownership team and outline a process for selecting and empowering influential employee-owners to serve as ESOP ambassadors.