Engagement is pivotal to employees’ performance and productivity, yet it’s a rare commodity, particularly in the UK. Only 9% of employees here feel enthused by their work, compared with the already paltry Europe-wide average of 14%, according to the latest research by Gallup. Could a business with a disengaged workforce solve the problem by converting itself into an employee-owned (EO) enterprise?
The EO business sector has doubled in size over the past two years in the UK, according to the Employee Ownership Association, which reports that 1,030 such companies existed in June. Prominent examples include the John Lewis Partnership and home entertainment retailer Richer Sounds. They are wholly or significantly owned by their staff, usually facilitated by an employee ownership trust (EOT). This is a tax-efficient model that the government created in 2014 in light of Sharing Success, an independent review conducted by Graeme Nuttall, which had declared employee ownership to be “a great idea”.
Great experiences involve meaning, mastery, appreciation and autonomy, all of which tend to be more present in employee-owned companies