Save the Date: EO Day:
📅 Friday, 20th June 2025
📢 Hashtag: #EOSmile #ShareYourSmile #EODay
Employee Ownership (EO) is all about collaboration, shared success and happiness. This year, for EO Day 2025, I-COM is embracing the #EOSmile theme with our own campaign called ‘Share Your Smile’. We invite all businesses connected to employee ownership to take part by sharing a photo of them smiling and letting us know what it is about employee ownership that makes them smile.
How to Get Involved
We’re putting together a giant digital collage, made up of photos from employee-owned businesses and their teams.
The final smile image will be unveiled digitally on EO Day across Manchester city centre.
📸 Join the movement! Submit your smile to our #ShareYourSmile gallery here. Your photo could be:
- A solo smile 📷
- A team grin 😀
- A whole-business beam 😁
The more creative, the better! You can even download the EO Smile prop to add extra flair.
Submit Your Smile:
To submit your photo, simply fill out our form with the following details:
✅ Name
✅ Company
✅ Email (We’ll notify you when your photo is live and update you on the launch!)
✅ Image Upload
💬 How does employee ownership make you smile? (Your response will be featured in our gallery!)
🗓️ Submission Deadline: Friday, 13th June 2025
See the Smiles Roll In!
Once submitted, your photo will be featured in our #ShareYourSmile gallery where you will be able to click on an image to see the stories behind the smiles.
We will also be choosing our favourite smile and that lucky winner will receive a hamper to make them smile even more!
Flex your creative muscles
Our friends at Best of British Beer have already submitted their smile photos and have improvised with props to create their smiles with beer bottles! You can see them in the gallery here.
Gill Sherwin, owner at employee owned Best of British Beer said “Our team had the biggest smiles when they found out they were going to be employee owners and as you can see they’re still smiling! We love working with I-COM who are also employee owned as every team member cares about our business. EO gives you stability and we really appreciate that we’ve been working with the same people at I-COM for many years.”
Tommy Harper and Lorna Furber from employee owned Best of British Beer
What makes you smile about being employee owned?
"I love the fact I get to make decisions on how the company is run"
Other Exciting Plans!
We’re gearing up to make EO Day 2025 a true celebration. Here’s what’s in store:
✅ Our I-COM team is already snapping their smiles - check them out in our gallery!
✅ Expect cupcakes, fizz and a fantastic celebration on the day!
Let's make EO Day 2025 the happiest one yet! Share your smile and be part of something amazing. 😃
#EOSmile #ShareYourSmile
James de le Vingne, Chief Executive of the eoa, said:
“I absolutely love EO Day - it’s a pivotal moment for the employee owned community to shine a light on the incredible achievements and successes of exceptional employee owners using their influence to drive better business impacts in and beyond their business.
“With our knowledgeable and dynamic network, I’m confident we can push EO further into the business mainstream. Let’s make this EO Day a significant step forward together!”
More about Employee Ownership
- The UK now boasts over ~2,250 employee owned businesses
- UK employee owned businesses contribute over £32-£41 billion to the UK economy annually
- There are more than 310,000 employee owners across the UK
- The impacts EO can make on employee wellbeing, business performance, and economic growth are found to scale across every industry [Robust Growth champions report]. The model also has a great deal of potential in specific mission-critical sectors like Social Care [People Powered Care report].
- EO businesses are on average 8-12% more productive per employee
- Employee owners have higher levels of job satisfaction, feel a greater sense of achievement and job security, and are more likely to recommend their workplace than employees in non-employee owned businesses
- Employee owned businesses operate in a range of sectors including healthcare, social care, education, transport, manufacturing, retail and professional services
