“Employee Ownership Australia is delighted by the announcement from Hon. Christian Porter, Attorney General and Minister for Industrial Relations that giving workers a financial interest in the company through employee share schemes is a potential solution to productivity and wages growth in Australia.
With the announcement “Submissions sought to build co-operative workplaces”, a discussion paper was released seeking submissions on the topic from interested parties. The discussion paper states that all research suggests that it is those organisations with the highest employee engagement which are the ones doing best in terms of both labour productivity and financial performance.
The consultation will seek to consider workplace cultures, employee share plans and other aspects of pay, communications and engagement. Especially important will be the three questions the consultation paper aims to address:
- To what extent do productivity benefits arise from cooperative workplaces?
- To what extent do employees benefit from cooperative workplaces?
- What other benefits are available to businesses, and the wider community by greater encouragement and utilisation of techniques to establish more cooperative workplaces?
You can see the Cooperative Workplaces Discussion Paper here.
The closing date for submissions is the end of February 2020.
See our Cooperative Workplace Submission developed for the consultation before the project was ‘closed’ owing to the pandemic.
