Lifetime MD Ian Dickinson features on the latest press release from Gripple (courtesy of Pro Active PR), which talks about the ‘Employee Ownership (EO) Open Day held at the Sheffield-based company earlier this month.

Ian (pictured below) and colleague, Communications Director William Bottomley, attended the Open Day at The Old West Gun Works in the Steel City!

Lifetime and other companies were able to learn and understand face-to-face Employee Ownership’s proven benefits, while Gripple staff enjoyed a free ice cream thanks to their fellow shareholders (see below).

Ian said: “Everybody was so welcoming of us. It was clearly a situation that anything we wanted to ask would be answered and time and consideration would be given.

“The refreshing point was that this was from the workers on the shop floor, through middle management right up to the Managing Director and Co Chairman. You can see the reason why the Gripple company has been so successful – through the ethos of the whole team.

“We are looking forward to asking more questions when we take our own EO thoughts further in September. Both myself and Bill left with a real buzz feeling that we have engaged with like-minded people who can help us achieve our Company’s EO ambition. Many thanks to the whole team!”

Gripple hosted the Open Day in support of the first government and Employment Ownership Association (EOA) initiative – National Employee Ownership Day.

The Association’s vision is to see 10 per cent of UK GDP produced by employee owned companies by 2020 and the special day aimed to raise awareness to a far higher level.

The EOA has two UK offices, one based at Gripple’s Sheffield HQ and the company’s chairman, Hugh Facey has been on the Association’s board for a number of years.

Gripple is so committed to EO that the company has recently moved the model on further by establishing a private employee owned company, GLIDE (Growth Led Innovation Driven Employee Company Limited), which represents all the shareholder members working in its partner companies with an employee elected board of directors, speaking for all GLIDE members – the staff.

At the Open Day visitors had an opportunity to talk to Gripple staff and other members of the Gripple ‘family’ of employee owned companies – Loadhog and PMS Diecasting – and also representatives from local companies which have already taken the step after recognising the advantages of EO.

As well as Lifetime, also attending were John Lewis, KPMG, Swann Morton, Abacus Design Associates, School Trends, City Health Care Partnership, Walker Morris, Spectrum Community Health, Sheffield Hallam University, TransaveUK, Co-ownership Solutions, Wrigleys and Wicker Pharmacy.

Speaking about the Open Day, Andy Davies, Gripple’s business development director and chairman of the GLIDE board, said: “EO companies in our region are keen to spread the good news that the model can be of tremendous benefit to their businesses, because staff feels that they own them! We were delighted to welcome those who wanted to learn and dispel any misconceptions about EO they may have.”