When Nannu Nobis started Nobis Engineering in 1988, he wanted a company with an open and effective culture. Although many of the programs, policies, and procedures the company created then still exist today, the ownership culture at Nobis, like the company itself, has grown and developed.

1. ESOP CASE STudY
Nobis Engineering
When Nannu Nobis started Nobis Engineering in
1988, he wanted a company with an open and
effective culture. Although many of the programs,
policies, and procedures the company created then
still exist today, the ownership culture at Nobis, like
the company itself, has grown and developed.
Nobis, a consulting firm providing diversified engineering
services to commercial, federal, state, and municipal clients
throughout the U.S., has performed well since 2003, with an
average growth of 15% per year since 2008. The company
established an ESOP in 2003 that now owns 33% of the
company’s shares, and company leaders credit the ESOP
and effective ownership culture with helping them achieve
this success despite hard economic times. CEO Nannu
Nobis plans to transfer the remaining shares to the ESOP
over the next three to four years.
Effective Communication
Gail Deruzzo, chemist and leader of Nobis’s ESOP
committee, and Janet Riel, ESOP trustee and company
controller, both noted that new employees are immediately
given all the same information as everyone else about
company financials, decision making, and how they can
best contribute to Nobis’s success. Along with new
employee-owner meetings twice a year for those most
recently eligible to participate in the ESOP, orientation
documents are given to all new employees. This helps raise
awareness about the ESOP and ownership culture from day
one and informs employees about what it means to work for
such a company, as well as what role they can play.
Except for confidential client information, “nothing is
secret,” says Nannu Nobis. The company holds annual
employee meetings where they share and discuss various
aspects of company information, such as share price or the
valuation process, and every year, each team or resource
center meets to discuss goals, new markets, resources, and
their expected contribution over the next year. The
company develops an annual business plan from these
meetings and distributes a physical copy to the whole
company. Simply put, everyone is involved.
Company leaders wanted to assess company progress
toward culture and performance goals and learn about
potential areas for improvement, so they used internally
developed employee surveys. In 2011 and 2013, the
company used the NCEO’s Ownership Culture Surveys to
measure how they were doing and to gauge their
performance compared to other employee-owned
companies in the NCEO survey database.
One of the clearest successes at Nobis was the extent to
which employees appreciated the company’s commitment
to frequent communication and employee input, sharing of
information, and ensuring that employees garner a clear
understanding of both the business and ESOP
fundamentals. For instance, when employees were asked
about whether “the company makes a sincere effort to share
information,” Nobis’s results were not only strong, but
substantially higher than the database averages. Ninety-one
percent of employees at Nobis responded positively to this
survey question, versus only 70% of survey respondents
overall (8,500 employees at 44 different companies).
Input through Representation
Nobis regularly informs employees about how or why the
company makes various business decisions as well. The
management team and executive team meet, and they share
the notes from these meetings, which include information
regarding management decisions or company plans and
strategy, for everyone to see.
The company developed a plan in 2008 to increase input
and communication between employees and management.
Employees elect technical representatives to attend all
management team meetings. The two representatives at
Nobis’s largest offices can serve two terms, and the company
hopes to add a third representative at another office soon.
The employee representatives have shared input and
suggestions with management that may have gone
completely unnoticed or misunderstood in the past. For
instance, employees noted that the company IT system’s
email size limit was too small and was beginning to
frustrate many employees. Management never noticed, but
now the problem could be easily fixed.
Social Responsibility
Nobis is also concerned with achieving a high standard of
social responsibility. Employees were asking the company
about making contributions to various local causes. The
company leadership agreed, so they formalized the
contributions they made to local causes by allocating a
portion of the company budget to community outreach.
The company has a community outreach team that looks
for different ways to invest money and resources into
community giving. Employees are also given two paid hours
a month to volunteer for non-political and non-religious
forms of community service, a practice that has been met
with strong customer and employee approval.
Nannu Nobis notes that developing such a culture is not
always easy, but the company’s commitment is to provide
the best services it can while allowing the employees to do
what they do best. Both its performance and its survey
results suggest that it is doing just that. A culture that
emphasizes shared information, transparency, participation,
and a commitment to core values has proven to be a
successful formula for the business. n
November–December 2013
Employee Ownership Report
9
Reprinted from the Employee Ownership Report, a newsletter for members of the
National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO). The NCEO is a private, nonprofit membership and
research organization that serves as the leading source of accurate, unbiased information
on employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), equity compensation plans, and ownership culture. To
learn more or to join, visit www.nceo.org or call 510-208-1300. © 2013 NCEO.