DJS Research celebrates two years of being employee owned!

On the 29th June 2023 we celebrated our 2nd anniversary of becoming employee-owned!

 

Our newly formed social committee organised the whole-company get together at the pavilion space close to our Cheshire head office, where we enjoyed wood-fired pizza made on-site in the late afternoon sunshine.

It was great to see so many faces and toast our journey so far as an EO market research company, and everything we've achieved together as partners. And for those who couldn't make it this time, our socials team sent them a Just Eat or Deliveroo voucher, so while they couldn't be there in person, at least their tastebuds could have a nice treat!

 

 

Since becoming employee owned on July 1st 2021 (on our 20th birthday!) we have done so much to embrace employee ownership, and all partners are helping to shape the future direction of the company.

 

Together we have co-created our Strategic Plan and Partners' Charter, and our partners' voices have affected change across the business in a range of areas.

 

Wellbeing has been a big focus with a number of initiatives introduced (longer lunches, fact sheets, mental health first-aiders and yoga, to name just a few..), as well as peer groups set up, mentoring schemes and buddies for new starters. We also wanted to tackle some of the root causes, and so we put a focus on recruitment to support workload, with 51 new starters across all areas of the business welcomed in the last two years!

 

Embedding the principles of EO 

The principles of EO are being embedded in everything we do, and we're being encouraged to think like owners at every opportunity. In the last year we have received financial training to understand more about how a business is run, and have been consulted regularly via EO Voice and our annual MyDJS Engagement and Wellbeing surveys to give feedback and share ideas. 

Following feedback from our Employee Engagement Survey, all DJS Partners received a pay and pension increase in 2023, as well as a tax-free EO bonus -- which is another great benefit of our EO status!

 

While we have covered so much ground in such a short space of time, and there is so much to be proud of, one of our absolute EO highlights has been winning the Employee Ownership Association's award for Delivering Good Engagement, presented to us at the annual EO Conference in Liverpool. 

 

James de le Vingne; CEO of the Employee Ownership Association, said following our win: