How Tom Bawkey Lives Employee Ownership
Tom Bawkey believes there are a few reasons why we’re here on Earth. One is to have fun, which is why he’s known to dance and sing out loud while working at his CNC machine. (“Sometimes they say I’m killing it. Other times they tell me to go back to the other song.”) Another purpose we have for being alive? He can’t tell you–you have to figure it out for yourself.
Tom has found that purpose, but his path to get there wasn’t a straight line. A year ago, he was checked out, disengaged from his work and coworkers, and as he calls it, he was in survival mode. He joined Paramount Plastics, a plastic thermoformer in Elkhart, Indiana, in 2024 to collect a paycheck. Elkhart County, whose economy relies heavily on the RV industry, can be tough for hourly workers, and Tom was content just to have steady income.
Tom is a natural-born rebel, and a tough childhood only reinforced that rebellious streak. He was a naturally intelligent kid but never liked the performative side of school. “I aced every test I ever took, and you want me to go home and do homework for what I just showed you? I know how to do this. I wouldn’t do it, and I failed. Because in the 90s, in the education complex, they wanted you to show the work. I can’t tell you how to get this problem solved. I can, but I’m not going to. It’s simple. My head just does it.”
His rebelliousness didn’t end when he left school. He has a tattoo of a Chinese character that translates to “resist,” a mentality that he brings with him to work. In a town that can be tough for workers, there can often be tension with leadership. Tom has a hard-earned history of mistrust of leadership, a perspective he brought with him to Paramount.
Along with four other businesses, Paramount is part of Empowered Ventures, an employee-owned holding company. As an employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP, Paramount’s employees and workers at the other businesses under the EV umbrella collectively own Empowered Ventures. Two main ESOP benefits are, 1) financial, since it’s often beneficial to own businesses for a long period of time, and 2) cultural.
For many, employee ownership’s main benefit is the potential cultural change. Amazing things can happen when workers are trusted to begin thinking like owners, from cost-saving ideas to continuous improvement initiatives. Paramount’s Director of Finance and Strategy Rachel Wolf says, “A lot of things that I’ve heard people say, is, well, we get buy-in when people see the statements. It’s not that the money is the afterthought, but to me, it’s more about the culture.”
For Tom, the financial benefits aren’t enough to get him excited about ESOPs. “The ESOP has to be evident, or it’s just the same thing. I’m still working for somebody else. It can’t be about the number. It can’t just be about this thing you may get someday. It’s gotta be about more than that.” But he’s absolutely concerned about the ESOP’s impact on culture. “With the ESOP, it’s like, I gotta retire to live the good life? I gotta wait til I retire to see any benefit. It’s the carrot at the end of the stick. Well, that’s faith. But if your day-to-day is brutal to get to that carrot, versus Hey, we’re all in this together as a team. We pulled together, and it might be tough, but damn it, we pulled through it together as a team? Yeah, 100% whole different ball game.”
After the Empowered Ventures acquisition, Paramount formed an ESOP committee. The goal is to have a representative from every department, and today, it consists of around eight workers. The committee’s job is to communicate to all other workers about the ESOP. From announcements to celebrations, the committee is the ESOP cheerleader inside Paramount.
Given a big personality and strong opinions, early in 2024, Tom was asked to join the ESOP committee. But in initial meetings, he was checked out. Paramount’s HR leader and fellow ESOP committee member Sarah Neff recalls, “I didn’t really start interacting with Tom until we did our ESOP committee meetings. He said that in one of our meetings that, well, I’m not really into party planning, so that’s why he kind of checked out.”
Rachel Wolf acknowledges that at that time, many in production struggled to justify time spent at ESOP committee meetings: “At that point some people had left the committee that were from the production floor, because it mostly just seemed like party planning. They had also assumed maybe they can have a voice in the committee that would help change some of the production issues or culture issues or healthcare or whatever it might be, right? And they had left because they felt like they didn’t get that.”
Tom is clear about the work he wants to do and the role it plays in his life. He’s willing to be a highly productive worker, but he doesn’t want to spend time on anything extra. “I’m only here to work. That’s the deal that I made when I signed a paper and said that I’m going to be here for monetary compensation. I’m going to give you an honest day’s work.” Tom wasn’t yet seeing the cultural benefits of ESOPs. “It’s not about the money. For me, what it’s about is: do we have a say?”
That is, until the time clock incident.
At Paramount, there are two ways to clock in and out: the time clock in the facility, or with a phone app within a set range of Paramount. When clocking out in the afternoon, the last thing workers want to do is stand in a “sweaty, stinking hallway with everybody in it.” So, many used the app to clock out remotely.
But using the remote time clock isn’t free–it costs around $400 per month. Paramount often returns cost savings to workers in the form of a production bonus, so management decided to cut the remote time clock access, thinking it would be positive for the production staff.
As an ESOP committee member, some coworkers vented to Tom. Taking feedback, listening to the frustrations, and sticking his neck out for others could mean losing his job. And in a town where many families lack financial cushion, losing a job can be devastating. But feeling a responsibility to speak up, Tom took the feedback to the ESOP committee, which included Paramount leadership.
Paramount’s management team listened. They reversed course and brought back remote time clock access. It was a meaningful moment for Tom: management listened to worker feedback, the ESOP committee changed from party planning to helping shape culture, and employee ownership became about something much bigger than a number on an annual statement.
Tom felt proud that he had stuck his neck out and helped create change in the workplace. “I want to be there for the people that are struggling every day because they’re trying to make ends meet as much as everybody else. They’re trying to do things right. They’re trying to cut down on scrap. They’re trying to do everything right.”
For Paramount’s leadership, it’s not always easy having such a strong advocate on the floor, but President Curtis Elliot sees the value in Tom’s voice: “You have to give him the opening to speak. He respects people that let him speak up. He respects leadership that will own up and take accountability when we need to.” But when Tom speaks up, he feels like he’s speaking up for others. HR leader Sarah Neff says, “Tom likes being the voice of the people.”
After a career marked by survival, Tom feels like he is thriving. As he said in a meeting with ESOP committees from all EV companies, “It’s thriving now. Instead of in survival mode using what I have to, now I’m using what’s uniquely Tom… y’know, and there are some things. I’m very very excited and eager to turn that into something I believe in.”
