The Innovations in Employee Ownership Award
The Innovations in Employee Ownership Award is an annual award recognizing creative ideas that help make employee ownership stronger and publicizing those ideas so others can learn from them. Innovations can deal with employee participation, entrepreneurship, communication programs, education, plan design, or other ideas that strengthen employee ownership.
First presented in April 2006, the award is open to any employee ownership company that promotes the spread of employee ownership plans or the development of best practices in employee ownership.
The Innovations Award is sponsored by TEOCO Corporation. TEOCO, an acronym for "The Employee-Owned Company," is based in Fairfax, VA: see http://www.teoco.com. It is administered jointly by the Beyster Institute and the National Center for Employee Ownership.
Read more about the 2008 winners here
Who is eligible to win?
The award is open to any employee-ownership company that promotes the spread of employee-ownership plans or the development of best practices in employee ownership. For purposes of this award, “employee ownership” includes:
- employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs)
- broad-based stock options (“broad-based” means that the plan covers a substantial percentage of the full-time workforce)
- employee stock purchase plans (ESPPs)
- worker cooperatives
- 401(k) plans, stock bonus plans or profit sharing plans substantially invested in employer stock
- similar plans that provide ownership incentives to a substantial percentage of a company’s employees.
How do I submit an entry?
Companies may self-nominate for the Innovations Award by completing an application, available as a PDF document. Companies may also be nominated by third parties, although the application must include permission from an authorized representative of the nominated company accepting the nomination.
Award Criteria
The Awards Committee will evaluate nominations on the following criteria:
- Value of the idea in developing best practices in employee participation, entrepreneurship, plan design, ownership culture, communications, and/or employee education,
- Value of the idea in increasing the number of employee-ownership companies,
- Value of the idea in promoting awareness and positive public perception of employee ownership,
- The ability of the idea to be transferred or propagated, and
- The quality of the documentation of the idea’s implementation and effects.
Anything the nominee has done or is doing is eligible for consideration, except activities for which the nominee has already won an Innovations Award. The Innovations Award is NOT limited to activities in the past year.
Prizes
In addition to the Innovations in Employee Ownership Award, which will be presented to a representative of the winning company at the NCEO/Beyster Institute annual conference, two representatives from the company winning the grand prize and one representative from any other winning companies will receive complimentary conference registration.
All winners will receive prominent publicity, including the NCEO and Beyster Institute websites, written materials from both organizations, and ready-to-use press-kits announcing their accomplishment. NCEO and Beyster Institute will publicize the winning companies and facilitate dissemination of the ideas behind the winning entry so that the ideas can be spread as effectively as possible.
Timeline
February 7 Deadline for applications.
February 13 - 15 Winners notified.
April 3 Awards ceremony (day 2 of the NCEO/Beyster Institute Annual Conference)
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