How Charter Communications Made Employee Ownership a Retention Tool

Time​ Magazine

16-06-2025

By
As Paul Marchand, CHRO of Charter Communications, attended employee town halls across the 41 states where the company operates, he kept hearing the same question again and again: 'How can I become more of an owner of the company?' That idea led to the company's new employee stock purchase program (ESPP), which allows workers to buy shares of the company, with a matching employer grant based on the employee's tenure.
For Marchand, the ESPP is just one part of a broader investment in the company's frontline workers, who comprise over 80% of the company's workforce. As you 'continuously improve their work experience, their work pay, their work policies and practices…[that] translates into a more knowledgeable, capable, informed, committed worker, which we believe then results in a better customer experience,' says Marchand.
We spoke to Marchand to learn more about the ESPP program and its intended effect on employees, customers, and company performance. Here are excerpts from our conversation, edited for length and clarity:
How does the structure of Charter's plan differ from other companies, and why?
As we started to look at it, we immediately thought the traditional ESPP isn't going to really make sense for us, given the ethos of how we think about our workers. A traditional ESPP is a 10-15% discount on the share price when you issue the share to the employee. So if you're trading at a hundred dollars, you're offering an $85 or $90 price point. Typically, those ESPPs are tax qualified and open to anybody in the company, from the lowest- to the highest-level worker.
We really wanted to design a program for that frontline workforce that we were regularly hearing this feedback from. We'd already been giving stock to directors and above, so about 94% of our workers didn't get stock as part of their jobs. We didn't want to design something that would include that 6% of people who were already getting stock in their annual compensation plan.
Second, we really have this mantra in our company about the longer you work for us, the better you are as a worker, the better the customer experiences. We want to try to figure out how we can be retentive in our stock plan. We have an approach whereby the longer you work for us, the more we give you as a return on that stock that you buy. So instead of a 10% discount—which is the generic baseline—we match shares based on your length of tenure.
For example, if you've been with us for 10 or more years as a worker, let's say as a technician driving one of our trucks and getting into those homes to help install hardware, if you buy four shares, we're going to match those shares, dollar for dollar or share for share. That means you're getting a 50% discount on those shares. Now if you've joined us and been with us only for a year or two, we're still going to give you a discount, and it's going to be worth a quarter. So for four shares, we'll give you one. We think that's a great way of sending that message to that longer-serving employee that you're highly valued, we want you to continue to work here, and we're creating this ownership mindset.
Thinking five, 10 years down the line, how do you hope this program has changed the culture, the product, and the employee experience at Charter Communications?
There's the obvious answer if you're a comp and benefits person, which is that the ESPP will help employees grow a balance in employees' accounts and they're going to have more financial accumulation, whether that's used for retirement or in the near term to help them financially.
If you start to peel it back, what I hope and think we'll create is more of an ownership mindset amongst the thousands of employees that get up everyday and service customers. When you think and act like an owner, you take things a little bit more seriously, you take a little bit more importance, a little bit more weight in what you do and how you carry yourself. We already have very strong, service-oriented workers who really understand the importance of our customers and our commitment to our customers, but I think this will help take it to another level.
For example, let's think about a store rep. That's somebody who, today, is very committed. They do their training and onboarding, join us working in one of our stores, and work everyday to sell our products and help existing customers with service issues. A retail worker who ultimately becomes a part of this ESSP plan, who's a little bit more like an owner, I think will take a few extra steps. They'll ensure that all the T's are crossed, the I's are dotted, maybe in the transaction itself or maybe in some of the communication in their follow-ups. Maybe they'll be a little bit more diligent and a little bit more focused on ensuring we get all the way to completion.
Again, I don't think we don't do that today, but if a person has been part of the program and they step back to think about the stock price, to our quarterly earnings call, and to our objectives in the aggregate, they elevate themselves from being an hourly worker in that particular store to feeling like, 'I'm part of the Spectrum brand. I'm part of this business.' They may think broader and wider because of the program.
With widespread budget cuts, what would you say to other c-suite leaders outside of
Context always matters, but as a leadership team, you have to really think about what your critical business priorities are and make thoughtful decisions. We absolutely have a growth mindset at this company, and you have to think about the investment required to grow. You have to invest in something to see it flourish and see it expand and see it be even better than it was yesterday or last quarter or last year. Because of that, we take people as an agenda item pretty seriously here.
Ultimately a decision like this, if it means the ability to attract better and ultimately retain more, pays for itself not only in the cost analysis, but I think in the philosophical and cultural analysis. Investments like these help us demonstrate that we're a good employer, as a place people want to work for and want to work with. Now, I absolutely lose employees, there's no question about that. But if I lose an employee, I want them to be a brand ambassador for the company they just left. I want them to advocate for our company and refer somebody to work here. I want them to say, 'That's a great company who pays people well, treats people well, and also has great products.'
You have trade-offs and decisions you have to make at corporations, but if you don't make those commitments, over time, you'll have a company reputation that won't be as attractive or retentive. And it's critical to solve those two issues.