Bret Keisling highlights two upcoming virtual events that are being held for no charge.
On Wednesday, November 15, 2023, from 2:00 to 3:15 p.m. ET, the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program will host a panel discussion called Unstable Schedules: Unwrapping the Challenges and Solutions for Service Workers. Experts will discuss the latest research on the experiences of workers grappling with schedule instability, how new technology is helping businesses adopt worker-friendly scheduling practices, what we are learning from states and cities with fair workweek laws, and other opportunities and strategies for change.
On Friday, November 17, 2023, from 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. ET, the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing will host the 6th Annual Private Equity and Employee Share Ownership Symposium, which is billed as an event for private equity, family office, private credit, and mezzanine investors.
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Mini-cast 243 Show Notes
More information and to registration for Unstable Schedules: Unwrapping the Challenges and Solutions for Service Workers here.
More information and to registration for the 6th Annual Private Equity and Employee Share Ownership Symposium here.
Listen to The EsOp Podcast Episode 253: Maureen Conway of the Aspen Institute here.
Mini-cast 243 Transcript
[00:00:00] Bret Keisling: Welcome to the ESOP Mini-cast. Thank you so much for listening. My name is Bret Keisling, and as it says on my business cards, I'm a passionate advocate for employee ownership. This episode of the Mini-cast drops November 10th, 2023, and there were a couple of seminars and sessions that I'm registered to participate in virtually in the next week and I wanted to take a couple of minutes to tell you about them and to encourage you, if you're interested, to register as well.
[00:00:36] Bret Keisling: On Wednesday, November 15th, 2023, from 2 to 3:15 PM Eastern, the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program will host a panel discussion called Unstable Schedules: Unwrapping the Challenges and Solutions for Service Workers. Experts will discuss the latest research on the experiences of workers grappling with schedule instability, how new technology is helping businesses adopt worker-friendly scheduling practices, what we're learning from states and cities with fair workweek laws, and other opportunities and strategies for change.
[00:01:13] " While the holiday season is a time of joy and celebration for many across the United States, it brings uncertainty and stress for workers facing unpredictable schedules. Workers in the service sector in particular are often on call and can have their schedules changed with very little notice. Unpredictable and unstable schedules are associated with economic, food, and housing insecurity; various health issues; and, for working parents, adverse effects on children's wellbeing and education."
[00:01:45] "In recent years, some state and local governments - including Seattle, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Jose, and Chicago, and the state of Oregon - have enacted fair workweek laws that provide workers with more stable and predictable scheduling. And some employers have changed their scheduling practices as well, recognizing that unstable schedules can affect business performance and employee turnover. Despite some progress, the status quo of unpredictable scheduling remains largely the same."
[00:02:19] Regular listeners will recall that we kicked off season seven of the primary EO/ESOP podcast with Maureen Conway. It's a great conversation from the Aspen Institute.
[00:02:31] During that conversation we talked about scheduling uncertainty, and I had shared a lesson that I had learned that was kind of humbling for me. When my kids were young, their mother and I would go to every school event they had, open houses, meet the teachers, et cetera.
[00:02:47] I'd often notice many parents not in attendance and I judged them way harshly. Later, after I was divorced, I started eating in a lot of restaurants and a lot of the same restaurants and I became friends with a number of service workers: servers, bartenders, et cetera, et cetera. And that's when I really learned the scheduling wreaked havoc in their lives. It's not that they didn't want to attend school events. It's that they didn't have the flexibility because they couldn't get their schedule in advance to make proper arrangements.
[00:03:20] Now, you may say this is not specifically connected to employee ownership and your absolutely correct. We talk often on the podcast that a lot of what we recommend that employee-owned companies do are simply best practices for running businesses. And if you can provide more scheduling stability to your employees, it's going to dramatically improve job satisfaction. It's going to dramatically improve retention rates. And that's going to improve profitability.
[00:03:53] I want to thank Matt Helmer of the Aspen Institute, who reached out to me and made me aware of this program. And we will include a link to registration in the show notes for this episode.
[00:04:03] The second event is obviously more connected directly to employee ownership. Our friends at the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing are presenting their 6th Annual Private Equity and Employee Share Ownership Symposium, which is billed as an event for private equity, family office, private credit, and mezzanine investors.
[00:04:27] It's being held Friday, November 17th, 2023, from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM Eastern, and it's also a virtual conference. There's no charge for this or the other event to register at all.
[00:04:40] Attendees are invited to learn about ways to achieve investor returns and broaden access to wealth by using the following techniques at portfolio companies: equity grants to the workforce, financing a sale to an employee stock ownership plan or ESOP, broad-based profit sharing and gain sharing, exiting through an ESOP, and then SBICs and ESOP lending.
[00:05:04] These are all very important topics. And if you follow employee ownership at all, you know that there's an increasing interaction between private equity and employee-owned companies and I think it's a really important and a great opportunity to learn more. And in my case, I want to hear what the private equity folks are saying about employee ownership.
[00:05:23] And I want to thank Chris Michael, who has been on the podcast a number of times in the past. He's a director at the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing. He's also one of the go-to people in the United States for employee ownership trusts. And he sent me a message through LinkedIn alerting me to this program.
[00:05:43] We'll include links to register for both of these events in the show notes for our episode. I hope you'll check them out.
[00:05:50] With that, we'll wrap up this episode of the EsOp Mini-cast. Thank you so much for listening. This is Bret Keisling. Be well.
[00:05:58] Bitsy McCann: We'd love to hear from you! You can find us on Facebook at EO Podcast Network and on Twitter [X] @EsOpPodcast. This podcast has been produced by Bret Keisling for the EO Podcast Network. Original music composed by Max Keisling. Branding and marketing by BitsyPlus Design. And I'm Bitsy McCann.
Standard Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are my own and don't represent those of my own firms or the organizations to which I belong. Nothing in the podcast should be construed as guidance or advice of any kind in any field and the fact that I mentioned an organizational website or an advocate or a company on a podcast does not reflect an endorsement, but if you've heard your name or your group's name mentioned on this podcast, I'd love to have you come on and talk about it yourself.
A note on the transcript: This transcript was produced by Descript, an automated transcription service. While it has been reviewed by The EsOp Podcast, we cannot guarantee the accuracy of the transcription. Please refer to the original audio when citing sources.
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