This is the 76th in a series of business tips from industry leaders that Enterprise Times has spoken to. Enterprise Times recently interviewed Eric Laughlin, CEO of Agiloft. During the interview, he spoke about employee ownership. KKR, recently took a majority ownership in Agiloft and indicated that it would transition to the employee ownership scheme that it operates across its investments.
I asked Eric whether he had any suggestions for business leaders looking to implement their employee ownership schemes.
Eric replied, “That’s a good question. For me, consistency is important. When I say that, I mean that everyone is on a similar scheme. So that there’s no question as to whether I’m getting my fair share or not. If as a CEO I am on a certain vesting schedule; it’s the same vesting schedule that every single employee had. That consistency is something that allows me to stand up in front of the team and say, ‘We’re all in this together in very similar ways. We have the same incentives.’”
Do you have a tip about the actual mechanics of the scheme?
“What we’ve done in the past is everyone has had options in the company. That’s been the vehicle we’ve used.”
How an employee ownership scheme has made a difference at Agiloft
Eric then shared details of the scheme’s value and why KKT might have adopted the policy.
“The value of options is that it’s very clearly focused on the growth of the value of the company. So that you have the same incentive as any other investor or owner to help grow the company in a way that makes sense. That includes not just growth but growth through customer success and growth in a very capital-efficient way.
“I felt very happy that at the end of these four years that one of the reasons that KKR invested in us is because we had very strong growth, but we did it incredibly capitally efficiently, much more so than any one of our competitors. A lot of that comes down to broad employee ownership.”
