A new wave of networking events in the South West: Opportunities to connect, share & learn

As the sector grows and more businesses transition, the opportunities to share, ask, learn and improve grow too. It seems to be in the nature of employee-owned businesses to be extremely generous with knowledge and time, with experience and advice. We know, because we’ve been on both ends of the conversation. Not only have many of these conversations been extremely valuable, but we’ve also developed some strong relationships based on shared values and a desire to see the sector succeed.

Sharing our experience and learning from others

We haven’t been quiet about our own transition, in fact, we’ve been making quite a loud noise about it. And, in doing so, we’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of questions about the decision to transition, the process, how it’s been going and how, as a team, we’ve navigated the journey so far. It’s been a pleasure to share our experiences and it’s made even better when we hear that the businesses we speak to actually transition to employee ownership.

As time has moved on, there have been occasions when we’ve needed some advice or some help. What role should our Employee Council take? What do we need from our Trustees? How do we start preparing for the day we’ve cleared our deferred consideration and achieved financial freedom?

Whilst many of these topics of conversation are well covered on the EOA’s Hub, there’s also huge value in face-to-face conversations. They’ve helped us to move things forward, learn from other’s successes and challenges and build strong connections for future conversations.

A new wave of South West events

Recently we’ve been excited to see a rise in the number of events for both new and more established employee-owned businesses happening on our doorstep.

Employee Owners Knowledge Sharing

Since the EOA Conference in November 2023, Stephen Scown LLP, an employee-owned law firm with offices in Exeter, Taunton, Truro and St Austell, have been running information sharing sessions, hosted by their Employee Trustee team. The monthly “EO Knowledge Share” Teams sessions are now in full swing, and attendees have shared their experience around core topics, such as employee engagement, celebrating employee ownership, expectations of ownership and encouraging employee owners to think like business owners.

These online sessions are always well subscribed, and our team from Salad have attended a number of them. Again, they create fantastic opportunities for EO businesses of any size and stage of EO to come together, share experiences, learn from each other and create relationships within the sector.

If you’re interested in finding out more, or attending the sessions, visit the Stephen Scown events section, here.

Face-to-Face EO Exchange

We’ve also seen the EOA return to the South West, hosting their face-to-face event, sponsored by Howden. Not only were we engaged by Stuart Rootham, Executive Director at Howden, on their employee ownership model and how they drive value for their employees, there was a panel discussion with representatives of the EOA’s Membership Council, networking and opportunities to share experiences and learnings.

Engaging keynotes, panel discussions, facilitated conversations and opportunities to network are all standard practice at EOA events. As the Association for the sector, their ability to bring together diverse business sectors under one umbrella allows members to learn from every size of business on almost any subject. Engagement, culture and communications are always high on the list of priorities, but the topics they cover are always of interest, from DEI to AI, the roles and responsibilities of trustees, and how EO businesses can make use of the newly published framework for great EO.

For more information about upcoming events, and networking opportunities in your area, visit the EOA’s events section, here.

South Coast EO Networking

At Salad, we’ve thrown our hat into the ring and run a few events over the last 18 months. A workshop for local EO’s proved valuable, but what piqued our interest most was the depth of conversation around the table. It’s something we’ve commented on before. EO-to-EO conversations tend to be about sharing experiences, sharing issues and sharing strategies. The dialogue is open, honest, humble and vulnerable. We’re a sector that knows that we’ll get certain things right and certain things wrong, but when we come together we can all learn something from each other, even if we work in completely different markets, and have completely different teams.

Our experience has led us to run more events to create more opportunities for conversation and networking and this is something we look forward to doing more of, to get the message out, and facilitate more sharing and learning as we go.

We certainly intend to keep our events running for local EOs and would welcome guests from further afield to come and join us. The opportunity to network within the sector is one we believe brings huge value, and gives us all a great opportunity to share, learn and improve employee ownership across the region and nationally.

It is fantastic to see employee ownership very much alive in our region, and we’re hoping that more businesses take part in the growing number of events that seem to be creeping into our calendars.

If you’re interested in attending you can register your interest here, and we’ll get in touch when we have more information.

Our EO programme is designed to help you overcome the challenges of communication, alignment and engagement. Head over to saladcreative.com/eo, or get in touch to learn more.