eodayWith today marking Employee Ownership (EO) Day, we asked our EO ambassadors how important innovation is to growing your business and how EO can offer an advantage.

Here, a number of ambassadors from a range of sectors – including manufacturing, oil and gas, textiles and agriculture – offer us their thoughts on the subject.

Nick Kuenssberg, Scott & Fyfe: “Recent findings from an employee survey have confirmed the intuitive belief that a sense of ownership and a genuine understanding of and commitment to the revised innovation-led strategy would enhance performance and thus the longer term future of the company. In parallel a visit from an internationally respected textiles consultant in April said that he had been impressed by such an innovative and vigorous company. Simultaneous innovation and ownership change was perhaps a risk but it is already proving to be well worth taking.”

Alan Spence, Accord Energy: “At Accord, we believe that investing in people and giving them space to think outside the box not only benefits them but also the company. Over the past five years, our employees have developed and presented a number of new and exciting approaches to oil and gas allocation. Our innovative work has helped clients by improving their systems of allocation, while we have benefited through wider industry exposure, higher levels of activity and improved recognition and satisfaction for our engineers.”

John Housego, WL Gore: “Bringing a continued stream of innovative products is the only way to keep your business alive and fresh in the marketplace. The benefit of an employee owned business is large in this arena because of the increased engagement EO businesses often demonstrate with their teams. Innovation comes from passionate associates who can use their knowledge of the capabilities available and the culture to have their ideas more readily heard, and so leveraging a larger proportion of the team in innovation. That feeling of ownership and joint reward really helps this process.

Ralph MacLeod, Galloway & MacLeod: “When structured correctly, employee ownership can unlock innovators within the business and reward them correctly. This is having a huge impact – differentiating us from competitors, identifying new markets and improving margins for stakeholders and customers in a responsible and sustainable manner.”

Dick Philbrick, Clansman Dynamics: “Cynics predicted that in an employee-owned business there would be a cautious attitude to technical development. The cynics were wrong – 2014 was our busiest year for technical developments. Nothing is guaranteed in engineering but if there are problems the Employee Owners will bust the proverbial gut to fix them.”