heath journal
A New Year, 166 New Owners
A New Year, 166 New Owners
If you're going to sell part of your company, do so to your employees! They deserve it, and they know best what makes it great.At our holiday party we celebrated the 166 employees who just became owners, at no cost to them, through our Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) — each receiving a commemorative tile symbolic of their ownership, and this awesome milestone for Heath in becoming an Employee Owned Company. More will follow each year.
We ask ourselves often: how do we ensure Heath runs on the same values, and keeps its creative spirit for the next 200 years? One answer has always been clear: put strong finances as a service to this goal, not the other way around. In this era, business success is often equated to how much money you sell your company for. Contrarians that we are, we choose a definition of success that has everything to do with simply making sure we can continue to focus only on designing beautiful products with integrity, in a way that's better for our employees, community, and the planet.
Doing great work that you love, without putting yourself in the position where outside financial pressure has you doing things you don't really want to do, works regardless of your scale, gross revenues, net profit, or valuation. For us, this is a happy business! Three cheers to our ESOP, the long and wonderful road ahead, and you, our customers!
Robin + Cathy (now, partial owners)
