An overview of shared ownership and how it works.

Shared ownership – or broad-based employee ownership – means providing every employee with the opportunity to become an owner who shares in the value they help create at work.

Ownership Works provides companies and investors with hands-on support to design and implement shared ownership programs, along with a suite of tools and best practices. The model we help companies implement includes four components:  

• Structuring & Implementing Broad-Based Ownership Programs
• Developing a Culture of Ownership: Employee Engagement & Voice
• Creating a Financially Inclusive & Resilient Workforce
• Sharing Data, Best Practices & Insight

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Ownership Works and our partners recognize the power of shared ownership to help generate benefits for employees, companies, shareholders, and society at large:

• Wealth Creation & Economic Resilience. By increasing workers' access to and participation in wealth creation, employee ownership can help families develop greater financial resilience and help address the lack of stock ownership among low- and moderate-income households.
• Racial Equity. By extending ownership opportunities beyond senior management – which historically lacks diversity – to all employees of a company, shared ownership can increase racial equity.
• Financial Inclusion and Resilience. When paired with financial education and coaching, shared ownership programs can help employees improve their financial know-how, offering one avenue to enhance financial capability across America.
• Employee Engagement. By reinvigorating corporate cultures, shared ownership can help improve employee engagement and voice, which can benefit both employee retention and company performance.

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Ownership Works is proud to launch with over 75 partners that represent leading voices in their sectors – from public companies to investors, financial institutions, foundations, pension funds, labor advocates, and professional services firms. This diverse group has made groundbreaking commitments to advance the shared ownership movement and break down longstanding barriers to bringing this innovative strategy to scale.

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Like most company-wide initiatives, adopting a shared ownership program requires an investment of time and resources. Enthusiastic leadership from the CEO and executive team are critical to success.

To help simplify and streamline program implementation, Ownership Works has developed several models, tools, and third-party partnerships.

Ownership Works launches with its shared ownership model already in place at private and public companies. For example, since implementing shared ownership in 2017, Ingersoll Rand has shared equity grants with all 16,000+ employees worldwide and the grants have grown in value from ~$250 million to ~$600 million.

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Yes. Ownership Works' Founding Partners have, for example, helped a company with tens of thousands of employees, spanning more than 60 countries, adopt a shared ownership program. While there is more complexity involved in a global roll-out, the potential benefits are also greater because existing employee engagement is frequently lower for distributed workforces.

Yes! Ownership Works has seen broad-based ownership succeed across many industries. To date, Ownership Works has supported shared ownership programs in dozens of companies spanning 14 industries, including manufacturing, education, technology and software, retail, insurance, and media.

In all cases, the design of a shared ownership program must be tailored to the specifics of the company and its industry. Ownership Works can help.

Many companies already share ownership with senior leaders in the form of a management equity plan. Achieving broad-based ownership may require allocating additional equity to an all-employee equity plan and/or a shift in the amount allocated to more senior executives. When well implemented, shared ownership programs should, over time, pay for themselves by maximizing shared wealth creation.

Yes, we’ve helped companies successfully deploy this model in a union environment and it was very favorably received by both the employees and union leadership. Of course, any benefit must be negotiated with the union and should not be taken directly to employees. We have experience and advice we can share, and also have outside resources who can assist with conversations.

Ownership Works supports both public and private companies, including family-owned and private-equity-owned businesses. We are currently building our pipeline of companies to support and would love to hear from you. Please contact us.