Since origination booms are considered the best time to get a good price for a company, its assets or its shares, initial public offerings and special purpose acquisition companies have drawn a lot of attention lately.

But given that employee retention is key to the long-term profitability of mortgage companies, there’s another underutilized strategy that the latest Best Companies to Work For data suggests owners may want to consider: employee stock ownership plans.

In a market where voluntary turnover even at the Best Companies in some cases topped 70% last year, lenders with employee stock ownership plans kept that rate at 25% or lower. The three ESOPs in the list each also ranked within the top 10 among companies their size.

“Particularly last year, when you had so many operational staff and loan officers working so many hours, and I would encourage anybody that’s running a mortgage bank and considering options to give it a strong look,” said Gellert Dornay, founder of Axia Home Loans.

ESOPs are the most common form of employee ownership in the United States and have been standardized in the tax code since 1974.

Across all industries, there are 6,460 ESOP plans covering 14.2 million people, according to the National Center for Employee Ownership. A handful of lenders have them, and they are most typically favored by private owners who are retiring and see their employees as successors.

An ESOP is set up as a trust fund that serves as a vehicle for the company’s shares has limited tax-deductibility. That deductibility is currently based on a percentage of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. In 2022, it becomes a percentage of EBIT instead. The shares are generally distributed to employees on an equitable basis and the company must buy departing workers out when they leave.