Oxford International Symposium on Employee Ownership
This piece was written by Carole Leslie, one of the delegates to the symposium. Where she refers to EO, she is talking about employee ownership. This symposium was generously supported by three organizations and an individual. The Employee Ownership Foundation was our major sponsor and The Menke Group, Prairie Capital Advisors, and Steven Fischer gave significant amounts to make the symposium possible.
60 employee ownership experts from across the globe gathered in London and Oxford over three days to discuss employee ownership. The event was a joint venture between John Hoffmire of Oxford University and the UK’s leading expert on employee ownership, Graeme Nuttall OBE. The wide-ranging agenda covered diverse topics such as valuations, share schemes, the UK EOT vs the US ESOP as a model, EO Design and where EO goes wrong.
Graeme Nuttall kicked off the Oxford segment of the event with a broad view of developments across time and place. He said pre-2012 should be viewed as the pioneering era for employee ownership in the UK. The experience of these “Early adopters” clarified what had to be in place to create a growing, vibrant employee ownership sector. Graeme was largely responsible for the introduction of the Employee Ownership Trust,
Financial Literacy Services and Training Programs
The Center on Business and Poverty has a separate non-profit called the Personal Finance Employee Education Fund (PFEEF), which focuses on assisting people as they take ownership of their financial well-being. Click above for more on PFEEF.
As part of accomplishing this mission, PFEEF recently won a $970,000 grant to help deliver proven financial literacy services and training program to individuals in their place of work. Financial literacy training includes education on a variety of topics: money management during stressful times, debt management, finding and keeping affordable housing, education, and career planning.
The grant will allow PFEEF to teach financial wellness principles through its subcontractor, the University of Wisconsin Extension. The training will take place online and be coordinated through financial literacy programs at enlisted organizations. They will have access to innumerable online financial empowerment courses, as well as a Financial Wellness Score to evaluate progress during the courses, and providing detailed reporting to measure the impact of the program.
The campaign will be able to build out community partners, financial wellness champions, and execute projects that will positively impact over 5,000 workers in Wisconsin, particularly individuals who have been disproportionately impacted by COVID. The PFEEF approach has proven to help