Charter Communications Looks to Retain Workers With New Stock Program

Wall Street Journal

15-05-2025

Charter Communications is hoping to get employees to stay put for longer, sweetening the pot with a new stock purchase plan being offered to tens of thousands of workers.
The Stamford, Conn.-based operator of Spectrum internet and pay TV will allow employees to buy stock through payroll deductions, and also receive matching restricted stock units that would fully vest after three years. Under the employee stock purchase plan, or ESPP, employees can contribute up to 15% of each paycheck to buy Charter stock, with a maximum of $5,000 annually. The longer a worker's been at Charter, the bigger the match they will receive.
'What we wanted with the plan was really to create an environment where employees could see themselves as owners of the company and could be invested in the long-term success of the company,' Chief Financial Officer Jessica Fischer said.
Announced at the end of April, the program is available to employees up to the senior manager level, or more than 95% of its roughly 95,000-person workforce. Directors and executives at higher echelons aren't eligible as they already receive equity as part of their compensation.
Employees with more than a decade at Charter get a one-for-one match, meaning that buying one share of stock also gives them one RSU. That is effectively a 50% discount on their purchase of the shares, Fischer noted. Charter hired Fidelity Investments to manage the trades.
Charter's plan differs from the majority of ESPPs at U.S. public companies in that it also offers matching. Rivals such as Comcast and T-Mobile US have tax-qualified plans that offer shares at a discount, typically 15%.
'The U.S. plans that we saw out there didn't do exactly what we wanted them to do,' Fischer said.
Other companies such as accounting firm BDO USA and furniture retailer Room & Board opted to set up employee stock ownership plans, or ESOPs, in which employers usually allocate stock to employees as part of a retirement plan. Besides its ESPP, Charter also matches up to 6% of salary as contributions to a 401(k), and an additional 3% for certain employees.
Of the U.S. public companies with ESPPs, just 6% said they offer a match, while 92% offer a discounted price, according to the latest survey by the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals and Deloitte Tax from 2023. But matching plans have seen an uptick in recent years, primarily because it's easier to communicate the value of a match than a 15% discount, said Barbara Baksa, executive director of NASPP.
'Conceptually, a discount is just harder to understand,' she said.
Both before and after the pandemic, Charter had seen a rash of employee departures. In response, the company rolled out several new benefits, including pay raises of up to 10% for promoted operations personnel and covering tuition costs for people with at least a year at Charter.
By 2024, attrition among Charter's front-line workers was 12% lower than it was two years earlier, the company said.
Improving employee retention will help Charter increase productivity and efficiency, which would save money in the long run, said Jonathan Chaplin, a managing partner at equity research firm New Street Research.
'It's a huge shift in a company's culture, and if you can turn employees into owners, it really ought to help facilitate that shift,' Chaplin said.
U.S. companies with ESPPs often struggle to persuade their employees to use the plans, which had a median participation rate of 38% in 2023, the NASPP and Deloitte survey showed.
Fischer said Charter isn't deterred by the generally low interest in ESPPs because its plan caters to front-line workers, in contrast with typical corporate programs that are more geared to executives, who have a slew of other investment opportunities.
'The sign-ups have exceeded our expectations so far,' Fischer said, declining to provide figures but adding that employees at recent town halls have said they'd rather buy stock than get a slightly larger bonus.
Workers are more likely to use a plan they consider generous, which Charter's plan appears to be, said Joseph Blasi, a professor and director of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing at Rutgers University. 'Rather than being a low-ball and status-quo plan, I do think it is innovative,' he said.
Charter is focused not only on treating its employees better, but also its customers, as it faces greater competition on fixed wireless internet services from companies such as Verizon and T-Mobile.
Charter has been losing broadband subscribers, but the pace of defections has slowed. At the same time, rapid growth in wireless is helping lift the company's Ebitda, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
Charter's stock is down roughly 20% from five years earlier, but is up about 50% over the past year.
'It's a company that genuinely does want to keep their employee base focused on the stock price and creating value,' said Craig Moffett, co-founder and senior analyst at equity research provider MoffettNathanson. 'The idea that they would want participation as broadly as they can get it is very much on brand for Charter.'
Write to Mark Maurer at [e-mail]