24 results for year: 2014


Mould in Our Hands

It has been a brilliant, unprecedented twelve months for employee ownership in the UK....

Annual Review 2014

A Successful Year in the Decade of Employee Ownership.

Member spotlight: CSH Surrey

CSH Surrey (previously known as Central Surrey Health) was the first of its type to spin out from the public sector in 2006. It is a pre-eminent example of a ground-breaking and successful employee-owned social enterprise that continues to provide the community nursing and therapy services in mid Surrey and has also diversified into offering private care services that are delivered by employee-owners with the same dedication and commitment to high quality and compassionate care. Government ministers recognised the power of the employee-owned model in transforming public sector services and thus its Mutuals Taskforce and Policy was born – enabling ...

EOA Chief Executive delivers annual Jack Fitzpatrick memorial lecture

Iain Hasdell, Chief Executive of the Employee Ownership Association delivered the annual Jack Fitzpatrick memorial lecture in Dublin last night.

Research Reveals Employee Ownership Leaders Are Unique

Richard Elsner, Founder, Pivotal Moment Leadership Development shares his recent findings, revealed at the EOA Annual Conference, on common features in leadership practice shared amongst employee owned businesses.

Colchester Print Group Becomes Employee Owned

Members of the Employee Ownership Association, the Colchester Print Group,  were celebrating their successful transition into employee ownership today. The move provides the company with a succession plan and they become part of one of the UK's thriving  sectors. Deb Oxley, Director of Membership, Employee Ownership Association (EOA) said: " We've worked very closely with Philip and the team at the Colchester Print Group throughout their move to employee ownership. They are now part of a growing sector that contributes £30bn annually to the UK economy. Employee owned businesses achieve higher productivity and greater levels of innovation and are ...

Employee Ownership Annual Conference 2014

Over 500 delegates from a diverse range of businesses and public service organisations including; the John Lewis Partnership, Unipart, the Cabinet Office, Handelsbanken, and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills gathered in Nottingham earlier this week for the Employee Ownership Association's (EOA) annual conference, the UK's only annual event dedicated to employee ownership. The conference was sponsored by the Childbase Partnership and Arup. Opening the day's proceedings, Chief Executive of the EOA Iain Hasdell paid tribute to how those who worked in the sector were playing a significant role in the country's economic recovery:  "I ...

The Very Best Employee Owned Companies Celebrated

The winners of the 2014 Philip Baxendale awards have been revealed, the awards are the UK's only dedicated celebration of achievement in employee ownership and are supported by the John Lewis Partnership, Cass Business school, the Cabinet Office and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.  The winners were announced at the Employee Ownership Association's annual conference in Nottingham. They include: Employee Ownership Champion Award, Teresa Gooch - East Coast Community Healthcare, Suffolk Employee Engagement Award, Turley, Manchester Employee Innovation Award, Mark Steeple - Gripple, Sheffield Employee Ownership Rising Star ...

Employee Ownership in Britain 2014

The initial findings from a major new piece of research by the Employee Ownership Association (EOA) and the White Rose Centre for Employee Ownership provides the first definitive assessment of employee ownership in Britain. The findings will be announced by Iain Hasdell, Chief Executive of the EOA at the annual Employee Ownership Association conference in Nottingham today. The research reveals: 
That almost half, 46%, of the companies surveyed have become employee owned since 2010 and 70% of those surveyed have seen the quality of their products and services improve since becoming employee-owned. Over half, 55%, report better financial ...

Our Hidden Deficit

A hugely positive outcome of the 2008/9 financial crash has been the emergence of a broad consensus on one of the biggest challenge facing the UK economy and our public services. It has taken a long time. But there is now a growing understanding amongst politicians across the spectrum, business leaders, and opinion formers that we have to overcome our productivity deficit. There is an acceptance that it needs to be dramatically improved at pace. We are on average 20% behind our main industrialised competitors when it comes to private sector productivity. And in our public services, the largest single part of the economy in many of our regions and ...

Member spotlight: ​Golder Associates

​Golder Associates is an employee-owned, global organisation providing consulting, design, and construction services in specialist areas of earth, environment, and energy. Golder’s clients represent the world's major industries and drivers of development: Oil and Gas, Mining, Manufacturing, Power, and Urban Development and Infrastructure. Through prioritising technical development and placing the empowerment of employees at the heart of the business, they have continued to provide award winning client service for over 50 years.

City Health Care Partnership CIC

City Health Care Partnership CIC, is a growing co-owned ‘for better profit’ business providing a wide range of health and care services across numerous geographical areas including Hull, the East Riding of Yorkshire, North and North East Lincolnshire and Knowsley, Merseyside.

Member spotlight: Wilkin and Sons

Wilkin and Sons have been making ‘Tiptree’ preserves in the Essex village of Tiptree since 1885 and have been in transition to employee ownership since 1989. Employees have in fact held a stake in the business since 1917 when a trust was first created to help employees and former employees in hardship.

Childbase Partnership

What began twenty years ago as a single nursery for around twenty children in the village of Sherington near Milton Keynes is today a major business. As Childbase’s chief executive officer Mike Thompson explains, his company now operates thirty-six nurseries for children across the whole of south-eastern England, employing a thousand staff and turning over around £25m a year.

John Lewis Partnership

The John Lewis Partnership (JLP) is one of the UK's most successful retailers. All 91,000 permanent staff are Partners who own 42 John Lewis shops across the UK (31 department stores, 10 John Lewis at home and a shop at Heathrow Terminal 2), 328 Waitrose supermarkets, catalogue business and online businesses johnlewis.com and waitrose.com, a production unit and a farm.

Philip Baxendale Award – Championing the cause of employee ownership

Following over a decade of employee ownership at the company, Childbase Partnership is in the top 12 per cent of UK providers of childcare and education; one of only 108 UK companies to be rated ‘Extraordinary’ by Best Companies, and has won prestigious awards for quality and innovative training programmes. Awards are great motivators but the annual Philip Baxendale Award scheme is different because it not only recognises excellence amongst the employee-owned sector’s highest performing organisations but also celebrates the individual’s role as a major player in the continuing success of their company. Our Partnership Council – the ...

A Positive Pause

General awareness of employee ownership, particularly amongst businesses, advisors, funders and politicians has risen to unprecedented levels. Familiarity with the long termism and high productivity it delivers is also rapidly rising, buoyed by the phenomenal success of UK Employee Ownership Day 2014 last month. EO Day 2014 was the most successful single initiative ever mounted in the UK to profile the extent and benefits of employee ownership. Critically, the evidence base about employee ownership has been getting stronger throughout this year as well. The number of employee owned businesses in the UK is growing at an annual rate of 9%. The ...

EOA Summer Dinner 2014

Speaking at the event he said: "Employee ownership is a great business model that had played a huge role in our economic recovery" and that "the security it provided for employees and their families should be celebrated." A long -standing supporter of employee ownership, Mr Alexander said he wanted to see the business model grow "further and faster" but that "the biggest barrier was awareness". Closing his remarks he said "We all want workers across the country to have a stake in, voice in and benefit from the companies they work for." A total of 150 leaders of employee owned businesses, employee owners and other partners gathered for the ...

Modernising the UK

So let us focus instead on a different and much more positive debate about the UK establishment, in this case the business and economic establishment. The business and economic establishment, and I include here the majority of financiers, professional advisors, politicians, civil servants, policy advisors and business leaders, support or at least accept a particular paradigm. The paradigm is of an economy with a disproportionately high number of businesses that are externally owned and operate with a dominant goal of driving near term external shareholder value. An economy that is too often structurally obsessed with short termism. An economy ...

EOA publishes new data on the economic performance of employee ownership

4th July 2014 – The Employee Ownership Association (EOA), the voice of employee owned businesses in the UK, has today, UK Employee Ownership Day 2014, published compelling new data on the contribution that employee owned businesses make to the UK economy. [.lead] Compiled by Capital Strategies, The Employee Ownership Top 50 illustrates the performance of the largest 50 employee owned companies in the UK. Speaking at the launch of the report EOA Chief Executive Iain Hasdell said: “Employee ownership contributes some £30bn to UK GDP each year and is a growing economic force. It is fitting that on UK Employee Ownership Day we are able to ...

Neighbourhood Midwives; The John Lewis of midwifery?

So, here were four strong-minded independent midwives who had chosen to be self-employed and who had vowed never to work for someone else again. Having to create an employing organisation that would meet all the necessary governance standards, to obtain insurance and CQC registration, but still allow us to feel and work as autonomous practitioners was a huge challenge. Midwifery has a proud tradition of autonomy; we do not need to be supervised by a medical practitioner and we have our own Code of Conduct and supervisory system. It was therefore vital to us that our new organisation provided midwives with as much freedom over their daily ...

EOA celebrates new Government measures to stimulate growth of employee ownership

This eagerly anticipated announcement was initially proposed in last year’s Budget, when an investment of £50m per annum was pledged, later increased to £75m per annum, to support the growth of employee ownership. Today’s Finance Bill has officially confirmed that, as of 6th April 2014, any UK business owner who sells a controlling interest to their employees via an employee ownership Trust, will be given Capital Gains Tax (CGT) relief on the entirety of the proceeds, effectively an exemption. Additional employee ownership incentives confirmed in the Finance Bill today include the fact that from October 2014, bonus payments made to ...

2014 Robert Oakeshott Memorial Lecture

This year’s theme was employee ownership in UK public services. The Lecture was delivered by Francis Maude MP, Minister for the Cabinet Office. The formal Response was delivered by Steve Melton, Chief Executive of Circle Partnership, a prominent EOA Member working across the health economy. In the historic setting of Chartered Accountants Hall, the home of the ICAEW, a packed audience of invited guests were inspired by the calls that both speakers made for more employee ownership in the delivery of UK public services. Francis Maude announced in his Lecture a series of practical measures designed to promote the growth of employee ownership. ...

Treasury Minister Supports Boost for 21st Century Employee Ownership

The speech marks a stepping stone towards achieving significant changes in the way businesses in the UK operate. The Minister will say:  “Working for an employee owned organisation has a particular appeal for many people and produces a number of personal, social and economic benefits, including higher levels of engagement and productivity. The government is fully committed to the sector and has recently made £75 million available to it in the form of tax incentives.” Iain Hasdell, CEO of the Employee Ownership Association, will say: “The Employee Ownership Association has been calling for additional measures in support of employee ...