Breadcrumb Path Hyperlinks
OpinionLettersColumnists
Article content material
By: Lisa Taylor
The federal authorities took concrete steps towards making Worker Possession Trusts (EOTs) a viable enterprise construction in Canada in final 12 months’s price range. This ought to be celebrated.
Article content material
However as the federal government prepares Price range 2024, advancing insurance policies to encourage EOT adoption and creating tax incentives for EOT implementation ought to be a high precedence for financial development.
Commercial 2
Article content material
EOTs are just about as they sound: a proper construction that enables non-public enterprise homeowners to promote an organization on to their staff. The possession could be transitioned over time or financed by a 3rd get together, so all staff can take part. EOTs supply an excellent choice for transitioning a personal enterprise past the standard pathways of a direct sale to a competitor or a foreign-owned entity, or just closing store altogether.
Worker-owned companies in different nations, such because the U.S. and the UK, have already proven us a number of the advantages we will count on right here — chief amongst them, productiveness features and wealth redistribution. However as Canada seems to extend its competitiveness, one other vital profit that EOTs might supply is potential enterprise development, particularly for women-owned companies.
Because the proprietor of an expert providers enterprise, I’ve participated in lots of packages meant to facilitate my firm’s development. But it surely wasn’t till the potential for an EOT that I grew to become severe about placing vital development plans in place.
Canada is a small-business economic system. In our non-public sector, nearly 90 per cent of staff work for small- to medium-sized companies (SMEs). Solely 18 per cent of SMEs are owned by girls. But women-owned and -led companies usually outperform different companies. Analysis reveals they’re extra worthwhile and expertise much less employees turnover, for instance.
Commercial 3
Article content material
Ladies-created and -run companies maintain super potential for the Canadian economic system, however they expertise quite a lot of disadvantages that hinder development. Ladies have extra problem accessing capital and securing funding. Ladies-owned companies are additionally much less more likely to export past Canada’s borders.
In a interval the place Canada should deal with rising its productiveness and competitiveness, offering each incentive for girls to interrupt historic patterns and develop their companies ought to be a precedence.
That is the place worker possession has a job to play.
Ladies usually tend to run service-based companies, the place scaling up is extra usually depending on the people who find themselves offering the providers. Worker possession presents a novel alternative to harness the facility, dedication, and pursuits of staff to advance their shared enterprise development.
Additionally, the ties between worker possession and company social accountability, worker prosperity, and wealth redistribution could also be a stronger motivation to develop for some girls enterprise homeowners (like me) than extra conventional causes, like revenue for the sake of revenue.
Commercial 4
Article content material
My firm, Problem Manufacturing unit, is an efficient instance — it’s a folks enterprise, via and thru. Our providers depend on the dedication and experience of our group members. Our consultancy work is targeted on shaping higher workplaces.
Organizations supporting employee-owned companies recommend that whereas worker possession fashions may exist for even the smallest of firms, EOTs could also be higher suited to organizations with at the very least 15 or 20 staff.
Our firm purpose is to create higher futures for our employees, simply as we do with our purchasers, to advance workforces, labour markets and profession transitions. Revenue permits us to perform this, however it isn’t the one means — and even crucial means — to measure success.
A development technique that focuses on staff, enterprise, and affect development all rolled into one is fascinating and compelling, and I do know I’m not the one girl founder and enterprise proprietor in Canada looking and contemplating totally different enterprise methods consequently.
In federal price range 2024, transitioning to EOTs ought to be robustly incentivized, each as a path to develop a enterprise, and as a part of shaping a greater future of labor for everybody, and it could work particularly effectively for women-owned companies.
Lisa Taylor is president of Problem Manufacturing unit and a Canadian profession improvement skilled, creator and internationally acknowledged professional on the altering world of labor.
Article content material
Share this text in your social community
