As of May 2023, all full-time TPG employees became investors in the company, seemingly overnight. Not only that, it is a company goal that will be fulfilled four years before projection, once each employee’s stocks vest at the three-year mark in May 2026.
Let’s roll back the tape
In 2020, The Partners Group leadership team set a BHAG (a big, hairy, audacious goal) called Give30 – to give back $30 million by the year 2030 in donated time and money to the community and annual profit sharing for employees.
The other part of this Give30 goal was to have expanded company ownership to 100% of its employees. The belief is that employee-owners all take responsibility for TPG clients as one.
Fast-forward to May 2023
The news that – surprise! – all full-time TPG employees were becoming stockholders was delivered during an all-hands company meeting.
“My first reaction was just . . . joy,” said one TPGer. Another said, “This was an amazing way to shine a light on The Partners Group as a company that gives back to its people and its community, always making an impact.”
The day was just as joyful for the executive leadership team making the announcement, as CFO Jake Shafer recalled. “We’d been working on this opportunity to extend ownership to all employees for quite some time. So it was a really great day. Lots of happy people in the office.”
Sooo…. what’s this all mean?
After the initial reaction, there were questions. Lots of them. “At first when we got the news, I was like . . . I think this is a good thing?” admitted a TPG staffer. “But as we talked it through, I understood that this was yet another example of TPG treating its employees as its first priority.”
Why, though?
Executive Chairman of the Board Rod Cruickshank explained, “It’s simple. When TPG executes on our purpose and gives back to our people and communities, the profit we earn stays local.”
In this way, all employee-owners are invested both literally as well as emotionally in seeing that all TPG’s divisions, all our employees, and all our clients do well. It’s a win-win.
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