Community building through shared ownership

Alongside this sharing, we’re making a concerted effort to create a community within our area of supportive organisations, all bound together by their dedication to and pride in their people. What we refer to as “people-positive”.

As the final rays of summer sun settled on our little corner of Dorset, we again opened our doors to our friends, inviting them to hear the stories from a panel of representatives of local organisations – Liam Toms from Grapevine & Jess Commoly-Jones Rubicon People Partnership – and some from slightly further afield – Oliver Puddle from DustScan AQ and Sam Moles from Stephens Scown.

Whilst our founder and MD Bella led the questions, it was very much the panel that made the evening so compelling. And, as many of these events have in common, there was plenty for our audience to learn, no matter how far along their EO journey. From Sam sharing how his role as Employee Representative has seen him set up an informal knowledge-sharing programme with other EOBs to Jess sharing how the involvement of the EOA and other EOBs has shaped their own journey, one thing was made very clear in the room: although everyone’s approach is different, we’re all bound together by the common goal of activating our employee-owners to build representative businesses that benefit the majority.

“It was very insightful and very engaging, it could’ve been double the time”

James Spinks, MD, Grapevine

It really is the case that “when you’ve met one EO business, you’ve met one EO business”. Each organisation, by their nature, is approaching this journey individually. Some of us, as Liam from Grapevine says, “are figuring out what EO is for us, when so much of what we already did is EO”, whereas others have had a more disruptive journey. But what brings everyone to the same page is really the effect that transition has had on their organisations

Jess describes Rubicon’s experience as “transformational”, even though it took them a while to really get under the skin of what EO means to them. Oliver’s advice really hit home for many, “sort out your governance, and focus on participation and transparency”. Sam gave similar advice, “involve people as much as you can in the plan and have them input”. This theme of participation seems to be an overwhelmingly positive and constantly recurring theme from all of our events. Otherwise, how do you get the buy in you need to make EO work?

“Trust your people and their capabilities, don’t fear mistakes, this is how we learn best.”

Jess Comolly-Jones, Rubicon People Partnership

This is why we love these events and why we put them on. We’re over three years in and we’re still learning, and appreciating all the shared learnings that come out of conversation with EOB’s of any age, in any sector.

Thank you, it was excellent. Wish we had more time and I would have them all back again for another session.

Rona Tompkins, MD, R&A Fabrications

Empowering employee ownership

Our EO programme is designed to help you overcome the challenges of communication, alignment and engagement. So, if you’re an EO business looking to make employee ownership work harder for you, we can help.

Head over to our EO page, or get in touch to learn more about the programme.