What a difference a year makes….well actually it’s five since we paid off our debt and became financially free and fully employee owned. It’s such a natural fit with our transparent, people focused culture that in many ways it hasn’t made much of a difference day to day. However, in other ways it’s hard to believe that we could ever have been beholden to our founders and working in such a different way to satisfy financial obligations.

I’m not saying the last few years have been easy, far from it. We’ve had to work supremely hard to build the business back up, weather Covid and the ongoing economic and political turbulence. But we have succeeded, and as custodians in the next chapter of Interaction, we’re determined to build on our success, grow the business, crystallise our strong working culture to take the business onwards and upwards.

It’s been a year since I became more actively involved in the Employee Ownership Association as part of the Employee Membership Council (EMC). I feel privileged to be part of a diverse and passionate group of people who are equally committed to promoting all things employee ownership. So it was great to be part of this year’s EO Conference again, meet up with fellow EMC colleagues and be part of yet another successful few days. In fact I’m still buzzing!

We were delighted to collaborate with Harry Pocknell from Salad Creative to run a conference session around ‘Leveraging the Advantage of EO: Recruitment and Retention’. Such a powerful combination of perspectives that helped the 120 strong audience understand more about how to work effectively with a diverse and cross-generational workforce and equip line-managers with the skills for success.

But it doesn’t stop there… we loved talking to people at our stand about their EO journeys, listening to different speakers share their stories and feel part of the supremely impressive EO community. Most definitely onwards and upwards for this small but rapidly growing sector.

I’m going to shamelessly steal their strapline too…. Interaction is proud to be a People Powered Business. Why? Because it’s not just us as co-owners that benefit, but our clients too through the dedicated and added-value service they receive. Totally win:win!