David Evans Enterprises, Inc.

David Evans Enterprises, Inc., in Portland, Oregon, is a full-service architectural engineering firm that works in the design and management of complex transportation, land development, water resource and energy projects from its multiple offices across the country. The company provides a 401(k) plan and an employee stock option plan with roughly $186 million in combined assets.

Amy DeWallace, David Evans’ human resource business partner, says the essential role of the staff to the company business model is what drives the benefits package. “We have always focused on our people and their health and well-being because we don’t sell widgets, we don’t make things,” DeWallace explains. “All we do is sell the brainpower of our staff, and we believe that all of our profit and financial success comes from employees who are engaged, healthy, functioning, happy to be here, and ready and excited to do creative work with our clients.”

The ESOP exemplifies this outlook. David Evans, the firm’s founder, established the plan in 1985 as an ownership transition vehicle. One of his goals was “to reward the people that make the company successful with ownership, so we’re connected financially with the financial outcomes of the firm and we get rewarded when the firm gets rewarded,” DeWallace says. The ESOP owns just over 28% of the company’s stock today.

ESOPs are relatively rare in the U.S., and many employees initially need to familiarize themselves with the plan. DeWallace says it’s probably the least understood part of the company’s benefits program, and she and her team work to explain it during new hires’ orientation. As employees stay with the company and see the value of their ESOP account growing, they pay more attention to it. Also, when employees log into their online plan accounts with Principal Financial Group, the plan’s recordkeeper, the website asks whether they want to see their 401(k) or ESOP account.

DeWallace says the ESOP has generated a significant additional retirement benefit because the stock price has increased tenfold since 2011. She cites the example of an employee who recently decided to retire earlier than he had planned based on the extra funds his ESOP account provided.

Retirement plans are an important part of the benefits package—a holistic well-being package. DeWallace cites what the company calls the five pillars of health: physical, emotional, financial, career and community. As an example of this approach, employees may spend up to $200 annually from their lifestyle spending account. Expenditures have ranged from hiking boots to financial advisory fees, DeWallace says.

Employees may also access a separate employee assistance program from Empathia that includes two additional financial well-being benefits. The first is an option to request a financial consultation with a certified consumer credit counselor, with unlimited access at no cost. The second benefit is a financial planning service that, for $35, offers a 60- to 90-minute phone session with a certified financial coach.

—Ed McCarthy