A little known fact about Interaction is that we are Employee Owned (EO) – and part of this small but growing sector that represents just 0.1% of the economy but drives around 2% of the overall economic activity (Source: 2023 EO Knowledge Programme). We are not just proud of our status but actively involved in the sector to promote the benefits, ensure best practice for our own business and also to advocate for ongoing focus on people development.

We KNOW people development is a critical factor in organisational performance and with our first-hand understanding of the ethos, structures and opportunities for EO companies, we truly believe it’s a critical focus.

For example, harnessing the power of a diverse intergenerational workforce is not a new challenge, but it’s a challenge organisations are increasingly paying attention to. The opportunity lies in ensuring that both recruitment and retention strategies focus on ways to attract and keep the right talent – but not just any talent, diverse talent! So lots of our recent client work has focused on ‘difference’ - how to understand and overcome difference, how to line-manage effectively and importantly how to harness the potential for brilliance in having a diverse team.

So we are delighted to be joining forces with Salad Creative to present a session on just this at the Employee Ownership Conference. We’ll be wearing two hats – our EO hat and our training consultancy hat to explore how to embrace the opportunities presented by intergenerational working and investing in people development and line-manager capability.

We are keen to share OUR story, be honest about what works for us, the challenges we face and our plans for the future as well as to share our valuable pan-industry experience.

Hoping to see some of you there!