The team at Houlder are delighted to be part of the UK Employee Ownership Day (EO Day), run by the Employee Ownership Association (EOA), on Friday 30^th June 2017.

Staff based on four sites – London, Portsmouth, Aberdeen and Tyneside – have a stake in the business while working on some of the UK marine industry’s biggest and most innovative projects, These include the RRS Sir David Attenborough polar research vessel, Royal Navy Assault Ship HMS Albion and environmentally sound passenger ferries for Wightlink and Caledonian MacBrayne.

Formed in 1987 and employing over 100 professionals, the employee owned marine company has clients in the offshore energy, commercial marine and defence sectors. It is proud to celebrate its employee ownership status alongside others in the sector across the UK,

Rupert Hare, Chief Executive Officer explains; “We have ambitious growth plans, but remain keen to ensure expansion is long term and sustainable. Employee ownership means our talented professionals have an incentive to grow with us. In an industry that has a reputation for short term contracts and temporary project teams, Houlder is able to provide consistency. We know this is something our clients value.“

Deb Oxley, CEO for the Employee Ownership Association, said:

“Companies such as Houlder are great examples of the benefits that can be achieved in an employee owned environment. The EOA is proud to lead the sector-wide celebrations of employee ownership on EO Day 2017, as part of our activity to raise awareness and move employee ownership further into the mainstream of business structures.”

With numerous events running across the UK and the involvement of thousands of employee owners and other partners, EO Day is an integral part of the EOA’s events calendar and was introduced to raise awareness of employee ownership as an economically strong and balanced business model.

The benefits of employee ownership have been proven in EOA-led research, and include improving employee health and wellbeing, increasing productivity and fostering creativity and innovation across an array of industry sectors. In addition:

• UK employee owned companies contribute over £30 billion to the UK economy annually
• Employee-owners have higher levels of job satisfaction, feel a greater sense of achievement and job security, and are more likely to recommend their workplace than employees in non-employee owned businesses
• Employee owned businesses operate in a range of sectors including healthcare, social care, education, transport, manufacturing, retail and professional services.

You can read more about employee ownership here.