Here’s a story about one of the unexpected bonuses of employee ownership. Last year I went to the eoa Annual Conference in Telford to represent Grapevine on my own. Knowing this, Emma Hardy from Blue Sky Financial Planning invited me to join her, Lesley Keets and Theresa Osborne for dinner when we arrived ahead of Day One of the conference.
When Emma told me it was at a steakhouse I didn’t have the heart to tell them I was vegan! The kind invite meant too much and I was happy with an English tapas selection of sides.
They passed on the kindness shown by Arabella Lewis-Smith and Harry Pocknell from Salad to Blue Sky’s colleague Emma Perkins, DipFA, taking her under their wing when she attended the conference on her own the previous year. I became an honourary ‘Blue Sky Blonde’ for the whole event, meeting up for lunch and between sessions to share our thoughts on the talks we’d each been to. It made the conference for me.
It was brilliant to be reunited with Emma and Lesley at our own ‘Ready for Business’ conference this week in Poole. The success of the event was hugely dependent on the support of our friends and I’m very grateful to Emma, Lesley and everyone else who took a chance on an unproven concept from us.
The unexpected bonus of employee ownership has been friendship. Dr Shelley Poole from Wellington HR opened our event with a great talk on employee comms. Harriet Friend was the first to book a ticket and represented a year of incredible collaboration between Grapevine and Rubicon Recruitment. Bella and Nicole Cook from Salad, plus EO alums Jessica Jones and Abigail Reeves made up our wonderful and engaged audience.
It’s often said that there is no guide book to EO – there actually is, but let’s overlook that for a mo to let me round up on my point. For the most part we’re charting unknown waters. That can be lonely territory, even with your colleagues (we prefer ‘Co-owners’ 💁🏼♀️) around you. Perhaps this cross EO companionship we’ve experienced isn’t just a bonus, it might be vital.
Liam Toms 