Companies with significant #employeeownership have solid business performance, #jobquality that is better than industry peers, and are broadly popular with the public and politicians of both parties. So why don't we have more of it? As I write with Joseph Blasi and Matt Helmer in Fast Company, the system is stacked against it. But it doesn't have to be that way! We write about some ideas here, and we'll be exploring more next week at the Employee Ownership Ideas Forum. Join us there or comment here and let us know what you think!
Alison Lingane
4mo
Maureen Conway, Joseph Blasi, Matt Helmer, I loved your Fast Company article! This sentence really spoke to me in particular: "And because relatively few businesses are majority employee-owned, some business leaders have come to believe that there is something inherently less competitive about employee-owned businesses rather than seeing the many ways the deck is stacked against them." Thanks for being such stalwart EO advocates!
Hilary Abell
4mo
What a GREAT idea to summarize so succinctly how our systems are biased against #employeeownership. I couldn't agree more that the playing field is not level, and that we can level it! These are big systems we need to change, but we're making headway. Thank you Maureen Conway, Joseph Blasi, and Matt Helmer for a fantastic article and for this important framing. I'm going to share this one widely!
Ryan Abel
4mo
Great article! We were able to transition post-founder because we are 100% Employee Owned and because our founder had the foresight to slowly divest ownership in the decade ahead of their retirement. I also think Employee Ownership is one of the biggest factors in our ability to retain employees well above the national average for our industry.
Gina Schaefer Sharing! 😊
Tej Gonza
4mo
I love this article! Has there been research that would look at the alternative wealth-creation opportunities in one-generation EO and evergreen EO structures? For example, we can intuitively say that inequality can be reduced more effectively through broad-based and "fairly equally distributed" employee ownership, but has there been a study that would compare (or anticipate) long-term effects the one-generation EO plan with plans that ensure sustainability of broad-based employee ownership?
Michael Kramer
4mo
ESOPs are terrific, and so are perpetual purpose trusts. My firm, Natural Investments, became the first firm in finance to be owned by such a trust, and it's a great model. We will be represented at next week's alternative ownership summit in DC, because trust ownership is another great model; https://impactalpha.com/this-sustainable-investment-firm-is-now-governed-by-a-perpetual-purpose-trust/
Another welcome log on the fire.
Ida Rademacher
4mo
Love the article. Love the work you are leading!
Jesse Tyler
4mo
Workers outside of the ownership community learning enough about EO to be curious, bringing it back to their companies with potential for transition to ownership structure may be a way to break through. Like bees bring necure to the hive.
Mary Sullivan Josephs, Margot Brandenburg, Livia Y. Lam, Ph.D., Sarah Keh, Jennie Sparandara, Paula D'Ambrosa, Erika Wright, Mary Ann Beyster, Jack Moriarty, Melissa Hoover, Alison Lingane, Hilary Abell, Evan Edwards, Todd Leverette, Christopher Mackin, Jenny Everett, Jennifer Briggs, Jennifer Gresham, Ph.D., Jeanne Wardford, Ellie Bertani, Mekaelia Davis, Patrice R Green, Wilma Liebman, Roy E. Bahat, Liba Wenig Rubenstein, Christine Curella, Philip Reeves, Dan Porterfield, Sean-Tamba Matthew, Stacey Sutton, Molly Hemstreet, Sara Chester, Steve Storkan