Workplace culture, a role in decision making and a move away from ‘us’ and ‘them’ are all tools to help create truly democratic workplaces

After a turbulent year, the UK’s largest co-op, The Co-operative Group, has voted to radically change the way it is governed. It was previously criticised for being ‘ungovernable’, but the Group says its new structure will increase democracy.

But, democracy within co-ops can be a complicated issue. It is often an ongoing experiment for the individual co-op, and even a democratic structure doesn’t ensure a fair businesses for all - workplace culture also plays a big part.



So, what are successful co-ops out there doing to create genuine democracy and a good workplace culture? Are there lessons for The Co-operative Group and others?

Nathan Brown, a member of consultancy Co-operantics, works with businesses to help them become more participative, that is, to bring in the views of employees and staff to a greater degree. He stresses the importance of a co-operative culture as well as having the formal processes needed to run a business in place.

“Culture can reinforce and support the formal processes or it can usurp them,” Brown offers. “When a co-op gets it right, by being open and participatory, the culture and formal processes work in synergy. But it’s often an evolving relationship between the members,” he says.

At worker co-operative Unicorn Grocery in Manchester, it has taken time to develop processes, but involving everyone in the business is essential, according to member Kellie Bubble.

“We are all directors and we all take responsibility for key strategic decisions. Fifty workers making decisions could be time consuming, so clear delegation and communication is vital,” she says.

“There are many tools we use, such as weekly team meetings, quarterly strategic member meetings, fortnightly all-member training sessions, an internal weekly newsletter and the morning diary, to mention a few.

“However, one of our biggest strengths is that we multitask so we have an awful lot of interaction, resulting in a really deep understanding of the business. We could start our day unloading a pallet of veg, then work on the till and do financial planning in the afternoon,” she says. “There is no ‘us’ and ‘them’, so we all work as hard as we can to make it work.”

Getting the right balance of structure and culture is important for co-ops working at scale too. Operating in the highly competitive telecoms market, the Phone Co-op is similar to Co-operative Group in structure. A UK-wide customer-owned mutual, it has 10,000 members that it works hard to involve.

The Phone Co-op’s board is made up of, and voted in by, customer members and the members turn out for elections in high numbers. It has also given members the option of an extra level of involvement, allowing them to invest in the business – a share scheme that has given the Phone Co-op £4.5m to develop the business.

Asked how they do it, secretary and membership manager, Amanda Beard, stresses the ethos of business: “By putting member engagement at the heart of everything we do,” she says.

“The Phone Co-op has always been obsessed with developing a participative relationship with its members because we realise that it goes to the heart of being a co-operative – not easy when selling a product as unsexy as telecommunications, compounded by not having outlets or shops as focal points,” adds Beard.

The bigger the co-op or business, the harder it can be to give everyone their say. The UK’s largest employee-owned business, John Lewis, has 91,000 staff, or ‘partners’ and has similar governance arrangements to the Co-operative Group’s new structure. That is, partners elect a ‘partnership council’ to represent them, and from this, five partners sit on the board alongside executive and non-executive directors.

This is supplemented, says John Lewis’s senior communications manager, Neil Spring, by a series of checks and balances. “Each store has a forum which is there to hold management to account and to ensure that partners have an influence on the business. Each forum has representations from each department in that branch. Our structure gives our management the freedom to be entrepreneurial, while giving the company’s owners - the partners, ownership through active involvement in the business.”

As the Co-operative Group picks up the pieces and moves into the future, there is likely to be a much stronger focus on its governance, democracy and workplace culture.

But the Group and the business world in general might do well to look to the wider sector of co-operatives for a wealth of inspiration on how to move into an age of open and democratic workplace culture.



Giles Simon works in editorial, research and development at the Co-operative News



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