At Cullinan Studio we have shared the
ownership since 1965. This has had the invaluable benefit of a low turn over of people, meaning we
retain our knowledge and experience of projects and construction methods. It also keeps us adaptable to our
clients needs.
Cullinan Studio is a
member of the Employee
Ownership Organisation, (EOA), Roddy, Kristina and I
attended their annual
conference in Birmingham last Thursday.
Simon Fowler, Chair of the
EOA and MD of John Lewis
Oxford Street introduced the conference inviting Iain
Hasdell, chief exec of
the EOA. Iain made the strong point that the Chancellor
"should be ashamed
of himself" for looking to remove the rights to
maternity, redundancy,
unfair dismissal in exchange for share incentives, which
he felt confused the
benefits of an employee owned company to irrevocable
undermining of an
employees rights. It also ignored all the advice the EOA
had given to HM
Treasury.
He went on to note that the
number of businesses
joining the EOA has grown by 10%, and that EOA companies
should strive to
provide 10% of UK GDP.
Graeme Nuttall of Field
Fisher Waterhouse then gave
an address. he had been responsible for producing
"Sharing success - The
Nuttall review of Employee Ownership" for the
Government. He noted
Employee ownership is now government policy and
advocated each member there
yesterday should get our voice out into the local
community on the benefits of
employee ownership.
We then went to various
seminars throughout the
day. A highlight for me was hearing Ali Parsa, chief
exec of Circle Health.
He noted great companies
succeed due to their
values rather than their products. Sony was started on a
shoestring after the
war, their vision was to use Japanese skills "to solve
the problems of the
world". They therefore had a dream rather than a
business plan, which
excites people and carries the employees along. Any
business should be about
satisfying the customers not shareholders and giving a
better service than your
competitors.
He also noted that if you
want to do something
amazing you need to persuade others to help, but they
need control of what they
do; to make them feel they matter. The opposite of
‘great’ is ‘good’ and to achieve
great things needs ambition. At Circle they asked the
1700 staff of
Hinchingbrooke hospital to write the business plan which
the board at the time
laughed at but they got 1200 responses.
A vision needs to state
three things; what do we
want to achieve, how do we get there and what are the
barriers to achieving it.
Employees also want three things to feel they have a say
in the running of a
business: autonomy, complexity and a link between effort
and reward.
Other thoughts he shared were that in
Germany
approx 40% of companies are employee owned, and that the
UK economy should move
to a mass ownership of enterprise rather housing as is
currently the case.
The event closed with a rousing clarion call from George Thomson, General Secretary of the Post Office, to make a transformation of society through employee ownership. He described it as the 'middle way' - between UK PLC where everyone works for the benefit of the few, and the Unions who have had to fight back for workers rights. Echoing Corey Rosen earlier in the day, he said Employee Ownership makes people happier at their work while making their company more prosperous.
What's to lose?
The event closed with a rousing clarion call from George Thomson, General Secretary of the Post Office, to make a transformation of society through employee ownership. He described it as the 'middle way' - between UK PLC where everyone works for the benefit of the few, and the Unions who have had to fight back for workers rights. Echoing Corey Rosen earlier in the day, he said Employee Ownership makes people happier at their work while making their company more prosperous.
What's to lose?
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