Transition to employee ownership with confidence
Practical and effective support to help you explore, plan and secure a successful move to employee ownership.
Owning your business is special – it can represent a lifetime’s work. So how do you plan your exit in a way that sets you up for success? If selling to an EOT is an option, how do you prepare your people and business for the change to come?
At Telos Partners, we understand.
We help make the transition to employee ownership work for you, your employee owners, your leaders and your trustees.
Why work with us
130+ employee-owned businesses supported
Knowledgeable team with real-world experience of working in the employee ownership sector
Seamless collaboration with trusted legal and financial advisers
Why EO transition support matters
When you choose to become employee-owned, legal and financial compliance is key. Yet a smooth transition starts with something else: clarity of vision, values and roles.
Success also requires leadership readiness, employee understanding, effective stakeholder communication and an assurance that sound governance foundations are in place.
This is where our trusted support comes in. We are the ‘people’ people of your transition to EO.
What we help you do
1. Decide if employee ownership is right for you
We help you understand what’s involved and if this fits with what you want for yourself, your people and your business – so you can decide if selling to an EOT is right for you.
2. Connect with the right legal and financial advisers
We connect you with carefully-selected trusted partners to provide the independent legal and financial support you need. Alternatively, we can work seamlessly alongside your own professional advisers to deliver a smooth transition for you.
Our consultants Adam and Jeremy discuss our EO transition support – watch the full podcast on our YouTube channel here.
3. Shape your roadmap and plan for EO transition
We help you to clarify your legacy, values, vision and mission as an exiting owner to create a roadmap and practical action plan for you and your people for the first 12 months.
4. Prepare your people, customers and suppliers for the transition to EO
We enable you to prepare your team and other stakeholders for the changes ahead – involving them in the process at the right time to build engagement in the opportunities, responsibilities and rewards that employee ownership will bring.
How we support owners, leaders and trustees to transition to EO
Owners
Our exiting owner readiness workshop helps you create an activity plan for the first 12 months.
We then work with your new employee owners to help them understand the change; define what ownership means; and create effective employee voice.
Leaders
We work with you and your leadership team to create a comprehensive EO transition stakeholder map, communications plan and engagement events.
We also enable your leaders to build effective post-transition engagement plans.
Trustees
Creating a trust board with the right mix of experience and skills is key.
We help you define your trust board requirements, then shortlist and appoint high-calibre independent trustees through our partnership with leading executive search business Russam
Client story – smoothing the transition
What inspires a business to become employee-owned? For the co-founders of an international award-winning animation studio, it was the desire to ensure their legacy and success could continue after they stepped back from their day-to-day responsibilities.
They approached JGA (now merged with Telos Partners) to help create and implement a successful employee ownership transition plan. Our support included the creation – and facilitation – of key EO representative groups and engagement programmes to empower the studio’s co-founders, board members and employees to deliver the new model. The focus was to ensure roles and responsibilities were clearly defined, and to improve two-way communication.
‘It really eased the burden having [your] wealth of knowledge to draw from,’ they recall. ‘We were able to pre-empt (and avoid) common pitfalls and – most importantly – were kept on track throughout, enabling us to move forward quickly and efficiently.
‘Thanks to [your] deep expertise and insight, the whole process was wrapped up within a year of making the announcement to our employees.’
[You] are… great people to work with. [You] helped to get our culture and values aligned to make our employee ownership transition smooth and positive for all. And it was fun having [you] on the journey.’
EO transition support
Founder, employee-owned niche tech supplier
‘[You] were enthusiastic and professional. [You] shortened the EO transition stage for us… and narrowed our focus to identify the actions required to get us through. If I needed [future] advice or intervention, [you] would be my first port of call.’
EO transition support
CEO, employee-owned waste management software company
‘We underestimated the amount of work involved in making our business employee-owned. There was a temptation to not use [your] skills but we could not have done it ourselves.... As a small business, it makes a real difference to have that outside voice advising you.’
EO transition support
Co-founder, employee-owned sales tech company
‘[You] delivered a bespoke day of training for our new EO Trustee Board and it was clear [you’d] thought deeply about what we needed. [You] were precise, attentive and did what we asked [you] to do – and did it really well.’
Building an effective EO Trust Board
MD, employee-owned environmental consultancy
‘We wanted [an Independent Trustee] who had already sat on an EOT Board and knew what was required. Immediately we started working [together], I felt I was in the hands of people who knew what they were doing. [You] delivered maximum results with minimum disruption.’
Independent Trustee resourcing for EO Trust Board
Co-founder and MD of employee-owned tech company
