New to Employee Ownership?
Access guides, tools, and stories to learn how employee ownership works.
What is Employee Ownership?
Employee ownership means the people who work in a business also own a share of it. It can take different forms—from worker cooperatives and ESOPs to employee ownership trusts and other equity models. All enable employees to share in ownership.
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Adria Scharf, PhD
Employee ownership means that the workers in a business also become its owners.
Some of the primary types of employee ownership in the United States and their reach, in a handout.
The award-winning film captures the journeys of three employee-owned businesses and their employee owners.
Where to Begin?
Practical tools and questions for an ownership transition.
Mike Palmieri & Chris Cooper, OEOC at Kent State University
Esteban Kelly, U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives
Why Employee Ownership?
Understand the benefits for workers, businesses and society.
Wealth and job stability, the benefits of employee ownership at a glance.
Douglas Kruse, PhD
An overview of studies worldwide.
Ed Carberry, PhD, et al
Do employees feel more like owners when employee-owned companies adopt robust communications, business literacy training, financial information-sharing, and employee involvement?
Roots of Employee Ownership
Employee ownership has deep roots and broad support today—from U.S. founders who tied ownership to democracy, to 20th-century succession and retirement innovations, to Black cooperative traditions of mutual aid. Surveys now show strong cross-partisan preference for employee-owned companies.
Today the concept of employee ownership is a topic where we see bipartisan support.
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