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The Home of Self Build, Custom Build & Renovation
• 67,000 sq. ft. year-round resource centre with 200+ stands
• Independent advice on everything from planning to plastering
• Self Build courses, exhibitions and Architect consultation days
• Free entry, plenty of parking and easy access just off the M4
These episodes will investigate various subjects in more detail, with expert guests, and previewing upcoming shows and events to help you with your potential or current self build and renovation projects.
Welcome to episode five of
Self-Build and Renovation Live by NSBRC.
Can't believe it's episode five, right?
It's wonderful.
Ten years of employee
ownership is the topic
we're addressing today.
And it means I've got a full
panel that we're going to
really find out about this.
We're shooting this now.
It's not going out fully live,
but you can still put any
comments or questions in
because there will be
someone watching those and
able to drop a line.
So make sure you do because
someone will be back to you,
I guarantee it.
First of all, far end, Harvey Fremlin,
Managing Director.
Welcome back to the show again, Harvey.
Hi, Chris.
Thank you very much for coming back.
Super excited to be talking
about our decade of employee ownership.
Yeah, absolutely.
And we haven't seen you on
the show since episode two,
I think it was.
Episode two.
I think I made a brief
appearance when we did the live.
You did?
We did the live show at the show,
the live broadcast of the show in October,
which was a really busy
couple of days for us.
But yeah,
it's quite nice actually now
we've reached December to
take a bit of time to kind
of reflect on the year
that's just gone by.
Absolutely.
It was a cracking show.
Next up, Katie Ashcroft,
the content marketing manager.
You've been busy.
Yeah, certainly have been.
I'm sure we're going to get
into all of that.
But yeah, in terms of marketing,
ten years of employee ownership,
all the new events that
we've brought out this year,
certainly has been a busy one.
But yeah, very glad to be back.
Just can't believe it's
episode five already.
I know, it's brilliant, isn't it?
I think episode three was
the last time we got you on.
We were down on the ground
over there and just in the
build up to the live show.
Gosh, yeah.
Yeah, that's flown by.
I can't believe that show's
been and gone as well.
Yeah, I know.
Absolutely amazing.
And then a newbie that
Harvey said was my long lost brother.
it is uh phil wilson the
business development
manager hello yes yes
episode five so I've
managed to escape it so far
and I'm not getting away
with this time yes so
business managers so I look
after the sales of the uh
exhibition stands that we
have here okay yeah I've been here since
So I've been here a while.
Blimey, that is, yeah.
Yeah, so happy to be here.
Thank you very much for inviting me.
So that was before it was
employee-owned as well?
I was here before we turned employee-owned,
yeah.
One of the originals.
Fantastic.
And that's a lot of
tradestands that are around here,
isn't it?
Over two hundred tradestands, yeah.
It's great, yeah.
I've seen a lot of changes
over those years.
Yeah, I can imagine.
I mean, I really enjoyed,
quick sidetrack for a moment,
is that when we did,
obviously at the live show,
we did the roaming camera
bit and wandering around
and catching up with people.
I was hiding around the pillars.
Every time you did,
you timed it to perfection.
But it was wonderful to
catch up with so many
people from so many
different facets of the
self-build and renovation
world that literally people
come in here and everything
is there for them to find out about.
The dream was to have
everything under one roof.
We've got that, I think.
And I'm allowed to say this
because I'm outside.
People say that and you kind of go, yeah,
okay, that's the goal.
It's there.
I mean, it's just,
I love the variety that was out there.
Even when I thought that I
knew majority of stuff that was here,
when we did that Roman, I was like,
Oh my God, that's really cool.
I mean, that's, yeah, what we want is,
you know,
when a visitor comes in and says,
have you got someone who does this?
Yes, we have.
Yeah, exactly right.
Exactly.
Right.
Today's episode then,
that ten years of employee ownership.
First off to you, Katie, what is,
I know it's fairly self-explanatory,
but let's expand on it.
What is employee ownership?
Sure.
Yeah,
it seems like the right place to
start before we do a deep dive.
So on the EOA,
the Employee Ownership
Association's website,
they managed to describe
employee ownership really succinctly.
So they say employee
ownership is where
employees have a say and a
stake in the company that they work for.
There's lots of different
types of structures of
employee ownership.
So this can be employees
directly owning shares within a company.
to having shares held on
behalf of the employees in
an employee owned trust.
We also have something called a SIP scheme,
a share incentive plan in
which employees can
basically attain shares
within the company.
Yeah,
so there's lots of different ways in
which you can have shares
in an employee owned business.
And yeah, it can be either held
only by the employees of a company,
but sometimes you have an
external stakeholder as well.
So for us, it's an investor.
So I believe at the moment
we're at eighty point one,
eighty point one percent employee-owned.
So the other twenty percent
is held by an external stakeholder.
Our investor capital for
colleagues who've been with
us from the very start of
our employee-owned journey.
But yeah,
businesses who are employee-owned,
there's actually quite a
few quite popular ones I
think that people would know about.
So there's Aardman Studios
who do Wallace and Gromit.
There's Go Ape, they're employee-owned.
There's also Lush,
the cosmetics company as well.
So there's loads of
different shapes and sizes
across all sectors of
employee-owned companies.
And I don't know whether
this is maybe a question for you, Harvey,
as well as having the say,
is there that you also are all taking,
for want of a better word,
the risk together as well?
Yeah,
there's an element of that because
we've got,
so Katie's described a different model.
So our model is a hybrid model.
So we've got a mix of shares
held in the EOT,
the Employee Ownership Trust.
Some of us have direct
shares in the company.
And then we have the SIP scheme,
which is another trust as well.
So
everyone has a genuine stake
in the company and
therefore yes they have
that say and that voice in
terms of some of the
decisions that we make as a
business and they're also
going to hopefully benefit
when the business is doing
well through various ways
profit share being the most
obvious but with that it's
the flip side of that when
times are difficult or
challenging for a company
we all have to roll up our
sleeves and you know and
kind of take the rough with
the smooth as well so
there is absolutely an
element that we're kind of
in it together for the good
and the bad and the ugly.
And we've seen the ugly in the early days.
So Phil and I were both
working for the kind of
previous operator of the business.
So we've seen when the
business has gone through
challenging times and, you know,
the kind of joyfulness that
employee ownership can bring, you know,
when you get it right.
Yeah.
And I think, Phil, briefly to you,
because obviously just
clocking that you were
before this happened as well,
is that you've mentioned the joy.
I would also use the word
pride because there is an
ownership there that you're
not just employed.
It's like, this is our baby.
Definitely.
It's got to make a difference,
that motivation when the chips are down.
It absolutely does.
And you can see that in all
of the employees that work here.
But personally, for myself,
Been with the company a long time,
ten years employee-owned.
At one point,
when Harvard goes back to the very start,
we weren't sure whether
this company was going to be here at all.
Was it going to be here next week,
next month, next year,
let alone ten years?
It took a lot of hard work
to get us where we are,
and it does make you proud.
Do you feel proud every day?
Motivated, yeah, exactly.
Motivated every day.
It's got to make a big difference.
It definitely does.
And I think that possibly
leads on to my next question to you,
is that why did NSBRC
become... Absolutely.
So the previous operators were struggling,
for want of a better word, really,
to keep the business going
the way they wanted to run the business.
We had an opportunity then
to take that business off
the previous operators.
It wasn't easy.
It was rocky times.
Harvey had just been
promoted to the MD then.
We had a few employees, ten,
twelve employees at the time, Harvey,
I think.
And we weren't sure whether
the business was going to
be working or not, or could we do it?
We weren't really sure.
Harvey took us into one room,
got us all in one room, said, right,
I believe there's a business here.
We can move this forward.
I'm not sure if I can pay you next month.
Who's with me?
And I kind of put my hand up and went,
okay.
And six people put their hands up.
A couple of people walked
straight out of the room
and we haven't seen them since.
I had to go to the wife and say,
This is what's happening.
It's not for everyone, is it?
Not at all.
I had a small daughter with
another daughter on the way at the time.
Babe, this is going to happen.
I think we can make it work.
Might not be getting paid next month,
but if it works out,
it's going to be great.
And she gave me the support.
And, you know, ten years later,
here we are.
But it was.
I mean, there were six of us at that time.
One day I was serving
coffees in the coffee shop,
next day I'm cleaning the toilets,
then I'm trying to sell stands,
trying to help with the marketing.
It was long days, long hours, but we knew,
we had the culture there,
and we knew that if we just
kept doing what we believed would happen,
we'd get there.
Even though times aren't as
stressful now there is
absolutely still that
element of we all pitch in
and help across other
departments so even though
you know the start we said
I'm in marketing you know
on Friday I was helping out
with front of house bits
and pieces you know if
people are needed elsewhere
in the business or you know
there isn't enough staffing
like we all just absolutely
come together and that's a
constant I don't think I
don't think that's ever
going to change and
I think it's nice.
I think it is really, really.
And we sense it, Tom and I, my producer,
and I sense it whenever we come in here.
I would go as far as to use
the word family.
Definitely a family.
It is a family.
Definitely a family vibe, yeah.
Totally.
Better or for worse.
You've probably heard Harvey say it before,
you know, it's not utopia.
This isn't, you know...
As a family, you have your ups and downs.
But generally,
we do come together as a family,
if you like,
and it all clicks into place.
We've all got the goal, the same goal.
Exactly.
Remind me, Katie,
how long have you been here?
So I've been here since twenty eighteen.
So, yeah, this is actually...
still is my first full-time job,
essentially.
So I've only ever worked
full-time for an employee-owned business,
this employee-owned business.
Yes,
so you've not got the frame of
reference the other way, necessarily.
I suppose not, but yeah,
I can absolutely see and
feel the benefits of
working for an
employee-owned business every day.
I know how lucky I am,
and that's why I'm still here.
Yeah, and that's what I like,
is that we've got those difference,
the people that have sort
of like been dragged along in the change,
those that only know it from the change,
and those that kind of...
was getting the troops to go forward.
And I mean, Harvey, that must have been
an interesting conversation
to have into that room and
like even the couple that
left it's like absolutely
they've got every right to do that.
Yeah like you said it wasn't
for everyone and people had
to make their own decisions
you know in those kind of
times of distress really so
what happened is just as
Phil described you've got
that small kind of group of
people that recognise that
this is a this is quite a
unique you know resource
that we have here and we've
always loved working
we just saw that there was
potentially a different way
to run the business and
make it profitable and successful.
And it came down to building
relationships really.
So we had the relationship
within the team.
And then the first thing
that we did was once we
managed to negotiate a new
lease with our landlord as
a new business,
was, right,
let's draw up a very simple
business plan here.
And it was a key,
most important thing that
happened was we all got around a table,
we shut the centre for a
couple of days and we did that together.
So it didn't matter how long
anyone had previously been
with the company,
what role they had with the business.
Everyone had a say in putting...
their vision,
our vision for where we
wanted to take this business.
Now, we kept that relatively short term.
So we were looking two to
three years ahead,
which for some business
plans is relatively short.
But because we've come
through that period of distress,
three years seemed a long
time in the future at that point.
So it was about being,
we wanted to be the heart of the sector.
We wanted to be this
outstanding business to work for and with,
which is where the
relationships really come into their own.
So what Phil and his
colleague Gareth and all of
us collectively have done
is really worked on
building that trust and that
genuine relationship with
our different types of
customers so whether it's
the exhibitors that show
their amazing products and
technologies in the centre
whether it's those
individual home makers that
come as visitors to see the
educational resources that
we have here and the
displays and engage with
the guys on the help desk
It's about that relationship
that builds the trust,
that builds loyalty.
And I think that's what
we've developed really as
our kind of employee and
culture is we've got each other's back.
And yeah, just as you said,
family is a word that we do
mention quite often.
And Phil, you're absolutely right.
It doesn't mean it's always
perfect and it doesn't mean
that we've hit on this kind
of genius plan where
everything we do is right.
It's not, you know.
We're SME,
we're relatively modest business
with about twenty two employees now.
We turn over about two
million quid a year.
And I think we really punch
above our weight in several areas.
Marketing absolutely being one.
Yeah, I mean, Katie, that is the way.
I mean, that is marketing, isn't it?
We always have to sort of
like portray bigger than it
might actually be.
And I mean,
what a great facility here from
the market.
And I'm going off on a slight tangent here,
but
In the marketing,
you need to be given the
foundation to run with to then market.
And it's just a wonderful
facility that you've been given.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
I mean,
there's so much going on all the time.
It's a huge venue in of itself.
So we've got so many resources.
So whether it's our
self-built educational journey,
the renovation house,
I know we're going to come
on to the new retrofit zone later.
You know,
so when people are coming to
visit the centre,
there's already so much to see.
But with all the events
going on and how much we're
able to create,
every year it feels like
we're coming up with new events,
depending on, you know,
what is it that our
visitors want to learn more about?
What are the new technologies?
That's the thing, it's constantly evolving,
isn't it?
And I think that's been led
by very much acknowledging
you've got two of these, one of them,
use them in that order.
Listen to what the people need.
And I get the impression
that's those coming through
the door and those that
were already in the doors as well,
that you listen to both of
those of what goes on
because everybody's
involved by the looks of it as well.
We do.
I mean, we run various with the partners,
so the exhibitors here.
We have various networking events,
and we ask them all the time,
what is it you want from us?
Is there anything we can be doing?
Have you any new
technologies we don't know about?
Is there something we should?
And we take that on board.
And if we can change for the better,
we do.
Exactly.
And like you say,
we're constantly evolving.
The market is constantly evolving.
The content,
the training content is from feedback,
everything.
I mean, obviously, say a big thank you.
We're in today.
This is an ultralines stand.
Thank you, guys.
They will know that we're
here because they've got a
camera in here.
They'll be fine.
But lovely, lovely venue.
Harvey.
You kind of alluded to this already,
but I have a note that says
your initial business plan
fitted to one single piece of paper.
It did.
It was A-three.
But it literally did.
So it was the first time
that I'd run a company.
It was the first time that
Phil had sort of led a sales team.
And we thought, let's keep this simple.
So we brought in a local business advisor,
actually, who we still work with today.
So over a decade of working with them.
we came up with this very
simple plan on a page
concept so it set out what
our mission was so i.e what
were we as a business then
and what we're all about
how we were formed which is
we're talking about as a as
an employee-led business
where we make the decisions
and we can be agile and
then what was that vision
that we wanted for the
business so it started off
with lots of flip charts
and colored pens and kind of
drawing awards and fireworks
going off and bank notes
and all the good stuff that
we wanted to create.
And it was like, right, okay,
that's lovely,
but how are we going to get there?
So we narrowed it down to
nine strategic goals,
things that are really important to us.
Some are very, very simple.
So be financially viable as a business.
And then below that,
there were some priorities.
So for us,
one of them was make sure we pay
all of our suppliers on time, every time.
look after the people that
are looking after us,
build those relationships again,
make sure we're doing the
absolute best use,
putting our marketing
budget to the absolute best use.
So let's really look at
what's working for us, what doesn't,
how are we going to attract
the right people?
Because we've got loads of
ways between us that we could bring
far more people into this centre,
but actually it's important
that we're talking to the right people,
people who have got genuine projects.
So we narrowed those strategic goals down,
which all kind of fed into
delivering that vision.
And if they weren't a priority,
they didn't get... They
actually got put on an ideas bank,
a tenth column, which was the ideas.
And actually some of those
ideas that ten years ago
weren't quite right for us now,
well then we've since introduced.
And
The lovely thing about that
was everyone therefore had
that shared kind of vision.
We all knew where we were headed.
And over the years,
we've sat down as a team
and reviewed that a couple of times now.
So we still retain that sense of everyone,
no matter what role you do in the company,
has that, you know, collective shared,
you know,
ambition and understand where
we're headed to.
Sorry, the view of it as well.
people can see that planner
page and your name is
against a specific project.
So when we're in the meetings that we hold,
you can still see that your name's,
you're responsible for it.
So it brings the whole team,
everyone's responsible.
It's great.
And I can sort of chip in
with the modern day side of things.
So it's definitely something
that has stuck since we've
become employee-owned.
And every so often,
each department will get together
And we'll have one for
conferencing because, believe it or not,
we're also a conferencing venue.
We do it all.
Very good one, yeah.
Yeah, we have one for sales,
one for marketing,
one for the front of house team.
And yeah,
it's got all the strategic goals on,
as Harvey and Phil have said.
But yeah,
it's something we still use all the time.
And we've actually got our
marketing one coming up very soon.
Yeah, Monday, I think.
Yeah, very soon.
Yeah, it's super useful.
It keeps us on track.
Yeah.
And I think one of the,
we've mentioned culture a
little bit earlier,
and one of the most important things,
and I think it's how you
can actually distinguish
between an EO company and a
normal company,
ordinary company if you like,
because we're just an SME, you know,
all the things we do,
having a business plan,
having engaged employees,
any company could do that really.
It comes down to that kind
of difference of culture.
So
everyone that arrives at the
centre is thinking of
behaving like an owner or a
leader in the business for
a start and then we have a
huge awareness about being
as transparent as possible
internally and externally
as well so those meetings
that Katie referred to we
will look at you know
what's going well what's
not going so well every
month we will share our
monthly management accounts
with everyone in the team
and with a bit of education
behind that so people can
actually understand what
they're looking at as well
because not everyone
actually understands a
profit and loss sheet or a balance sheet.
So by having that information,
we're all absolutely in, you know,
we've got all that
information to hand and we
know how our bit of the
business is affecting, you know,
the overall performance of the company.
And we do that with our exhibitors.
So we're very,
very honest about the number
of people that are visiting us,
the types of projects that they've got,
the budgets that they've got.
And that builds that trust as well.
So then when people are
thinking about whether they
renew their contract with
Phil and Gareth to have their stands,
they will do because they
can see that the data that
we're providing is
absolutely a hundred percent accurate.
and I really like that when
we were here for we
obviously broadcast live
from day one of your
two-day event in october
yeah I've lost track of
time now I can't believe
it's december already um
and and you were kind
enough to invite for the
for for a quick drink
afterwards where everybody
got together all of the the
the partners and everyone else
and you stood up and the banter,
the atmosphere in there was amazing.
It did become a collective team altogether,
didn't it?
It was really, really nice.
And even their involvement
in what you guys are doing,
whether it's on the marketing,
the sales and operational,
because even like, for example,
this show,
I had at least two or three
people from the partners
turn around and go,
I love the fact that NSBRC
are pushing outside of the four walls,
i.e.
taking it a lot wider
because they know that it
helps them get the exposure
and get people here and
through the doors and in front of them.
But it was just that
everybody seems to be evolving together.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But if you think about what
the purpose of our business is, the why,
if you like, for us,
it's about helping people
enjoy and live in better,
sustainable homes.
That's our why.
And we can't do that on our own.
We can only do that by
having the very best
manufacturers, suppliers,
advisors in the sector,
in the house building sector,
all together under this one
giant roof and kind of create that hub,
really.
So we have to bring the
exhibitors on board because
we can't do it ourselves.
And by doing that, the visitors,
the people that are
interested in building or
living in one of these
better quality homes,
they then get that same
sense of reassurance that
the people that they're talking to
want that for them as well.
You know, so very,
very rarely will you be
visiting the centre and being sold to,
you know, it's all about, you know,
we've seen this somewhere
in the previous episodes, you know,
people just want to give
you the best advice,
the best information so
that you can then go home and make,
you know, kind of educated,
informed decisions about
what's best for you.
And joining the dots I found
was important because it's not just going,
right, I now need to be educated on that,
but something will come up and they go,
okay so to enable this I
need that is this oh yeah
they're going to speak to
them about that and it
joins those dots together
and you are just literally
being educated and a lot of
it as well is I did not
know that was even possible
yeah I saw a lot of those
around this venue and I
think that's brilliant I do
love that you can tell I
love what loved wandering around um
Phil, to yourself,
one of the key phrases that
I was given was pandemic
resilience as well,
because in the middle of this,
ten years ago, difficult,
recover from that, and then suddenly,
was it, twenty-twenty?
Let's throw in a curveball.
We thought twenty-twenty was
going to be the year.
We kept saying twenty-twenty is our year.
The year of self-fulfillment.
Life happens.
Life stopped happening.
We closed the doors.
So yeah,
essentially we were a visitor
centre with no visitors,
or no visitors allowed.
So we were thinking,
what are we going to do?
How are we going to get over this?
So one idea we had,
Harvey's idea probably,
We've got a huge database of
previous visitors or people
that may have signed up or
attended one of our courses, etc.
Now, we knew through this closure,
this pandemic,
that they still needed help
with their projects.
And we thought, right,
we've got this huge database of people.
Maybe they visited us last week, last year,
last month.
we're gonna phone them.
So we set up something
called Self-Build Pro,
I believe it was called.
And we turned this,
well our office upstairs,
essentially into a call center.
So obviously we had to be,
what's the word?
Socially distanced.
Miles apart from each other.
Miles apart, the office is big.
There were six or seven of us, I believe.
And we came in and
essentially we had a
database of past visitors.
We're like, okay,
let's phone these people up.
Let's see.
So I'm phoning Mr. Jones.
Hi, Mr. Jones,
you visited the center a few weeks back.
Sorry, we're closed now.
Hope you're okay.
Hope you're safe.
You were in, how's your project?
So we could see what project they had.
So yeah,
Mr. Jones might have had a
self-built plot in Bath or whatever.
And he'd be like, okay, actually, no,
you know,
I still need to speak to a
heating company or I'm
still looking at
potentially a window company.
Okay, so dig a bit further.
Okay, well,
I can recommend a few companies for you.
We could then send those
leads on to our exhibiting
partners still.
So I'd phone them.
Because during the pandemic,
building was one of the
very few activities that
actually was allowed to carry on.
So building merchants, for example,
were open.
And people didn't necessarily realize that,
again, being very,
very careful with health
and safety and social
distancing and all that good stuff.
But yeah, so it was a way of us
bringing the center to
people when they couldn't come to us,
essentially.
And it was received really well.
I mean,
the visitors were really happy that
we were phoning them and saying,
this is great service.
Of course, our partners,
I'd phone Mr. Window guy and say, hey,
John from Bath,
still looking at some windows.
I've spoke to him this morning.
Can you give him a call?
And they'd be, okay, well,
this is fantastic.
So again,
that was still continuing the
support from our partners.
Because at the end of the day,
they pay us an annual rent
to have a space here.
So we were still offering them a service,
our visitors a service,
and it got us out of the
house and stopped me going insane,
really.
But to be fair,
and I've got to applaud you
guys for doing that,
because that particular
task is outside of a lot of
people's comfort zone.
And enjoyment is not the
most enjoyable of that.
I kind of run that little
self-build call centre, if you like.
I'd worked in a call centre
environment before, so I kind of knew...
it wasn't a high pressure, you know,
I wasn't like,
you don't want to make a
hundred calls today or anything like that,
but it was, so, but yeah,
and for the first few calls,
we all sat in this big office upstairs,
you know,
and I know Christina was over there, like,
come on, Christina, pick the phone up.
Everyone's listening to me.
But after a couple of days,
all of a sudden,
and the phones are flying
and we were calling people
and it was really, really good.
It was great atmosphere and
we'd have KFC Fridays or whatever.
Other fast food is available.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Shouldn't have said that.
But I kind of also wonder whether,
perversely,
that that's been a useful
experience to go through,
that people have suddenly gone, oh, yeah,
it's not that hard to do.
It's not.
That's right.
Because it's a mental block
with that particular task I find.
I can be terrible at it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What was interesting,
so alongside Phil and his
team in the centre doing our call centre,
Katie and I really became
hosts of various online events,
workshops and surgeries.
Yeah.
so just obviously one of our
key offerings is running
the shows which you've
mentioned obviously been to
one and and then all the
other workshops and courses
there's something going on
here all the time every
weekend it feels like um so
suddenly being told you
know you you can't do that
for the foreseeable and you
know at first we thought
maybe this is going to be a month or two
There's a lot more than that.
So we did have to find a way
to pivot our offerings
really quickly and find a
solution and bringing it
back to the theme of employee ownership.
I think being EO really
helped us from that point
of view because it was me
and you predominantly
working on the Zoom
sessions and speaking with our partners.
and curating the content and
the events and just having
to move like that.
And being able to move like that as well.
Yeah, exactly.
Obviously all from our
kitchens at this point.
But I just think if we were
in a bigger company,
perhaps we would have
needed to get through all
those layers of approval and sign off.
And obviously we did all the
correct procedures and we
made sure it was all of a good standard.
But we would literally
create a workshop on a
Monday morning between us
and we were delivering it
in front of hundreds of
people on the Thursday afternoon.
So we could be really,
really quick with things, couldn't we?
And people genuinely really
appreciated it.
And we know that because
when we were able to reopen our doors,
they would come in and tell us,
which was great.
And the feedback we got
instantly was lovely on the chat,
functions of Teams or Zoom
or whatever platform we were using.
But them coming and saying
during that time,
it was so fantastic to be
able to still come in with
our research and get this
information and know that
other people were in the same boat as us.
So I think people did
absolutely appreciate it, didn't they?
We were so proud of it.
We've actually got a poster.
It's a printout of all of
the key stats from this time.
And this is going to sound a bit sad,
but I know it off by heart.
Here we go.
I only know this because
I've been sat across it
since maybe twenty twenty one.
But we produced two hundred
and forty five hours of online content,
live content, and this was attended by
five thousand and eighty one
virtual visitors and we did
thirty four individual events.
We'd never done anything
online before purely
because of the pandemic.
We spoke about doing online events,
you know,
what can we do for our visitors?
You know,
how can we give them the best experience?
in terms of online events
because we've got this
fantastic centre and
there's so much here it
never really reached the
top of our to-do list
because we just wanted
people to come and see the
centre because that's you
know at the end of the day
that's going to be the most
beneficial thing is if you
actually walk through the
doors and you can look at
the different products read
about the services engage
with people you know that's
that's probably the best
thing but you know given
the restrictions I think we
were able to be very agile
Yeah, so going back to that culture.
So you've got Phil suddenly
wearing a call centre manager hat.
Katie is kind of TV host and
most other things.
And then some of her other
colleagues who might
otherwise have been
furloughed during that time.
So Kirsty, I can remember.
painting our toilets and different areas,
reception area,
because they just wanted to
come in and do something so
that when we were able to open our doors,
the centre was looking as
sharp as it possibly could.
So I'm not sure if you'd always get that,
you know,
that kind of almost like people
volunteering their time
because they wanted to make a difference.
They care.
yeah especially as the
weather was nice and they
were all outside barbecuing
and drinking yeah yeah and
what was what was amazing
coming back to our plan on
a page the very first bit
in terms of our vision was
to be an award-winning
business um and we did get
an award um at the end of
the pandemic so the
employee ownership
association kind of
recognized what we did and
gave us this uh award for
business resilience at the
end of that time so
it really,
it was probably the best award
that we've won actually in terms of it.
It was, you know, the whole team, correct,
you know,
were able to kind of get us to
that position.
And so it meant a lot to us.
It probably was the most,
complete demonstration you
could give of the benefits
of employee ownership.
Yeah.
I mean, you're right.
The weather was,
we could have all just said, no,
let's just close the doors.
Yeah.
And barbecue.
And barbecue.
And then hopefully we'll
come back in six months
time and hopefully the
business will still be there.
Yeah.
But I think had we done that,
I don't think we would have,
we probably would have survived,
but it would have been a lot harder.
Yeah.
A fingernails job, wouldn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's it.
Another note that I had with
regards to your pandemic
resilience that I'm
intrigued about and I've
deliberately not asked
until now because it says half marathon.
We try to support local
charities and community
groups when we're able to
and we were reading about
Threshold which is a
Swindon based charity who
look after homeless people
and the difficulties they were getting in
Because I don't know if you remember,
but the government were
doing their very best to
try and help anyone that
didn't have a fixed home to
get them safe and indoors.
So we wanted to try and
raise some money to help threshold.
But some of the kind of
typical activities that you
might normally do weren't
available to us.
So at the time,
my physique slightly
changed in the last couple of years,
but at the time I was quite
a keen runner.
So we ended up doing an
indoor half marathon for charity.
And there were only two of
us in the building,
so me running and Phil, who all,
Phil had one job.
I wasn't running.
Which was to... I did a couple of laps,
like...
Phil did join me for a few laps actually,
but Phil's job was to mark
every time I had done a lap
in the centre on a big flip chart.
Because no one could see this,
I was there as proof that he'd done it.
We kind of filmed a little
bit and I was marking off the laps.
This was inside this building.
And there was one moment
where Phil was also doing
some social media stuff as well.
I ran past him and noticed
he hadn't marked the flip chart.
And I said, Phil,
that means I'm going to
have to do an extra lap.
Phil, mark the flip chart.
So I think
uh that I hold the world
record for the fastest
indoor half marathon in a
self-built visitor center
which is something I'm very
proud of absolutely yeah
but we did raise a good
amount of money for
threshold and again it was
something that the whole
team could kind of get
behind in terms of helping
promote it and yeah and it
just it kind of it was a
nice thing to be able to do
we did have a beer in the
car park after we did yes
Fully deserved.
I think he deserved it.
He deserved it,
but he couldn't drink on his own.
You had right as cramp, though,
didn't you?
It's hard work marking those laps.
And he couldn't drink on his own, so,
you know.
I love that.
So, amazing pandemic resilience.
Online surgeries we've
already talked about.
I mean, I've got a question here,
but I think we've largely
been covering it as we're going.
But is there anything?
Because the question I had was,
what have you been able to
achieve through employee ownership?
I mean,
I think we've been covering that as
we go.
Is there anything we haven't touched on?
I think the relationships is
absolutely key, really.
Awards,
we've been lucky enough to win a
few awards in the last ten years,
which has been fantastic.
financial performance
because ultimately we are a business.
So we're a limited company.
We need to make a profit.
We want to make a profit
whilst being kind of, you know,
doing the right thing by
our customers as well.
And I remember the first
year we had made a small profit,
which was two or three
years into our EO journey.
And it was interesting
because one of the nice
things about being
employee-aimed is you can, if you want to,
share the reward,
share the profit with your team.
So we've made a modest
profit and I put it to the team, look,
we actually could pay a
profit share if we want to.
What do you guys think?
And unanimously, everyone said, no,
let's not do that.
Let's keep that in the business.
We know the recent history
of a distressed business
that we've all kind of come from.
Let's do the right thing by the business.
And even today, ten years on,
our kind of rule is that we
always retain at least
fifty percent of any
profits that we've made.
in the company to reinvest
in continually like we were
saying earlier involving
the the center uh so
looking up you know we've
changed all the lights to
led lights in the building
for every building in the
every light in the building
I think is led now um
another we've we've got
eight ev charges at the
front of the car park which
the business has funded so
uh we still have that ethos
that we put the business first
That said,
we have been in a position for
eight years in a row now to
pay a profit share to the team,
which is an amazing thing
to be able to do.
This year, so back in June,
our previous financial year,
because it was our ten-year celebration,
we wanted to pay a
meaningful profit share to the team.
So there were lots of
discussions about what does
meaningful mean,
because it might mean
something quite different
from one person to another.
So Katie, in her role as EO rep,
helped have those discussions.
And what it came down to is,
for most people,
meaningful meant the
equivalent to a month's salary.
So that's what we did.
We paid a profit share to
the team that for about
eighty percent of the team
was equivalent or more than
a month's salary,
which is something we're really proud of.
That is really impressive.
You touched on something,
and I will turn to Katie
about this in a minute,
but you mentioned EOREP.
And part of this is EOREPs
and conferences as well.
It's a very nationally supported thing,
this employee ownership.
Yeah, that's it.
So we've just come back from
the annual Employee
Ownership Association conference,
which is an annual event
that's run each year.
Because we have not quite
the majority of our shares, but about
Forty-eight percent of our
shares sit in an EOT,
an employee ownership trust.
That trust has trustees who
look after that trust.
And one of the key things
for any business is that
you have a genuine
representation from your team.
So every two years,
which is our version of it,
we elect two of our
colleagues to be employee owner reps.
who represent the team as a
whole and I'm not going to
steal Katie's thunder
because Katie is our
current EO rep along with
her colleague Kirsty so
Katie you can tell us more
about what it means.
Yeah fantastic so being an
EO rep it's a fantastic
opportunity you know I'm
glad to help out my
colleagues it's something
that I wanted to do I've
been here for quite a long time I think
There's quite a few
different things that you
need to do in order to
fulfil your duties as an EORAP.
I have got a few of them
just noted down here.
So one of the key things
that I do is I attend the
quarterly board meetings.
And the reason for that is
I'm kind of a bridge between the EOTs,
the trust and the kind of,
you know, the directors, if you like,
of the company and anyone
sort of more senior.
And then we've got the rest
of the team and I act as a voice.
I kind of act on behalf of the team.
I share any of the feelings
that the team might have,
just make sure that
everyone feels that they're
fairly represented.
You know,
if they've got any feelings
towards something we should
or shouldn't be doing, you know,
as a company.
Equally,
I'm meant to be there to hold the
board to account,
which can sometimes mean
having difficult conversations.
Not that it really does come to it often,
but that is something that
I need to consider and be up for having.
So yeah,
being involved in decisions
regarding the best way to
use profits and dividends in the company,
sort of in the best
interests of all the
employees and the company itself.
Helping to maintain our EO culture,
and that's something really important,
just ensuring that our
values are found throughout
the business and just
making sure that we are well
planned and maintained in
terms of leadership and
management of the company.
Is it,
and this is probably more a question
from my mind going on it,
is it you are representing
the team that are sort of
employee owners or are you
having to be very neutral
in the middle and be able
to kind of like side,
listen to both sides of the argument?
Neutral.
Yeah, I had a feeling it would be.
Neutral, yeah.
So it's, yeah, like I said,
it is being that bridge and
it's just making sure that
we are holding...
everyone everything going on
in the business to account
and just making sure it's
all heard and fairly
represented comes back to
that transparency as well
isn't it so katie um sits
in on our board meetings so
katie knows um that you
know what we're the things
that we're saying we're
doing we're actually doing
you know and um and if
there are sort of big
decisions to make or
difficult decisions to make
katie is involved and we
will and have done you know
we would seek Katie's, you know,
steer on that as well and
views on it because it's important.
And I think that just gives the whole team,
and we are bearing in mind
we're relatively small businesses,
about twenty-two of us in total,
but it gives the team that
reassurance that their
voice is being heard and
being considered as well at board level.
Yeah,
but including the board's voices
being heard,
being represented to the team.
Fair shout.
What about the conference?
Yes, that was fantastic.
It was my first time attending.
So I went to the Telford
International Centre this time,
that's where it's held.
I went with Harvey and then Amanda,
who's our accountant and HR as well,
and Kirsty, our other EO rep.
We went up there for a
couple of days and we just
heard lots of keynote speakers,
lots of different breakout seminars.
We learned about things such
as how to provide excellent
customer experience as an EO company.
I attended various breakout sessions.
Some of them might have been
different to Harvey,
because you got to choose,
because there was just so
much going on there.
It was a huge event.
So some of the talks I
attended were on topics
such as how to be an
effective employee trustee.
I thought that was quite relevant for me.
I thought it would be
interesting to attend one
called how to manage profit share,
because even though I'm not...
sort of too involved in the accounts,
that side of things,
just understanding at a
deeper level how we manage
that as a company.
It's just really good to
know about these things and
try and learn something different.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sorry.
I was going to say, I didn't go this year,
but I've been to previous
EO conferences and they are special.
They're fantastic.
Really?
Really, really good.
And they get you engaged and they are
the Employee Ownership Association.
So they're the people that
get everyone together and
try and promote employee ownership.
I think when we first started, Harvey,
as an employee, there was something like,
four hundred employee
ownership companies in the UK.
Now there's, what's the number?
One thousand six hundred and fifty.
In fact,
it's just about to tip over two
thousand now.
One of the reasons is that
It's an interesting one.
There's an attractive way
for an entrepreneur who has
set up a business,
run a business successfully,
but is now headed towards retirement.
So you've got a whole baby
boomer generation of people
that have done just that.
They don't want to just shut
down a perfectly viable business.
They don't particularly want
to sell it to a competitor.
So employee ownership is
actually this amazing
opportunity where they can
hand their business to the
next generation,
the management team within that company.
They might choose to take
their stake of the business
over a longer period of time,
but in that time they can
manage the transition,
they can make sure it's
being run in the right way,
the culture is retained.
So it's becoming more and
more attractive for people.
Also,
if you have over fifty one percent of
shares in the trust, the EOT,
you can pay a profit share
of up to three thousand six
hundred pounds tax free.
So that's really attractive
for everyone working in
that company as well.
So I think the awareness of
employee ownership,
not just the kind of financial benefits,
but the cultural benefits
that it brings and
the way you can use it as a
differentiator between you
and your competitors.
People are really
understanding that now and
that kind of growth is just
going to keep going upwards.
This might be a silly question, Harvey,
but I'm going to give it a go anyway.
And this is probably more
for people that maybe don't
appreciate the benefits of
going employee ownership.
You, ten years ago,
were putting a business
plan together to take over
this business that was
struggling at that point
and you believed there was
a way that you could get it working.
You could have gone as the
owner and got staff and
could have built it up and
could have sat there as a
fat cat at the top of this business,
potentially,
and could have sold it off in
the future and all of this.
I'm being brutal with the comments there,
exaggerating it, but what made you go,
part of this business plan
is employee ownership?
Yeah,
so I'll be absolutely honest in terms
of response.
So Katie mentioned our investor,
a group called Capital for Colleagues.
So Capital for Colleagues
are a small number of
investors who will only
invest in businesses that
either are already or are
transitioning to employee ownership.
And the reason they do that
is because they've done the
research and they know that
EO businesses typically are
more productive and more
successful and less chance
of going under.
Oh, really?
So it's a smart move on
their part really to kind
of back the EO businesses.
So if you asked me ten years
ago to talk about employee ownership,
I probably could have spent
thirty seconds touching on
John Lewis and Waitrose.
who are the same business really.
That was about the extent of
my understanding of employee ownership.
And what I knew that meant
was great customer service.
You've got team members who
are passionate about what they do,
might go the extra mile and
they might get some reward
if the company's doing well.
that was about it.
So we have had to do a real
deep dive into what
employee ownership means.
And still, you know, ten years on,
going to this conference,
every time we come back
with learnings and we can
improve the business and, you know,
key kind of takeaways we think,
Actually,
I thought we were getting our
customer experience right.
I thought it was great,
but it could be even better, actually,
if we just make these couple of changes.
So it's about always
evolving and always improving.
But yeah, people will do that,
but they will still come to that point.
Now, what do they do?
How do they get their money
out of the business?
If they take it all out in one go and say,
I'm off to the Bahamas,
that business is gone.
And it's possibly a more tax
efficient route as well to
actually hand the business
to a trust because you get
capital gains tax relief.
So there's various kind of
reliefs put in place to
make it an attractive
option to keep that
business viable and going
and hand it to the next generation.
And also,
if you really have built up that business,
surely you're going to have
respect and belief in the
people that have built that.
You can't build a business on your own,
can you?
You can to a point,
but you need other people around you.
Absolutely.
It's doing the right thing
by the people that have
helped you develop that as well.
And we are coming back to
that word family.
We're a very, very close-knit team.
We all respect each other.
We've all got each other's backs.
And this model of ownership
allows us all to benefit
from it and develop personally as well.
Do you have to be a certain
size business before you
can become an employee?
No, it's a good question.
I'm not entirely sure,
but I know certainly
businesses where they've
just got two employees that
are employee-owned.
In our field of home building,
there are lots of architectural practices,
which typically tend to be
a small number of people
who have moved to an
employee-owned model
because they really like
the idea of the culture and
the shared risk and reward.
I think, Harvey,
at the conference you were
involved in a panel discussion as well.
Yeah,
so on the second day I was on a panel
of four and we were talking
about profit share.
So I was telling our story
about how we were able to
pay our meaningful profit
share and what that meant to the team.
And also,
how did we come to this decision
of how do we share those profits fairly?
And fairly,
everyone will have a different
version of that.
So my or our version is,
if you take me as an example,
I earn the highest salary in the company.
I also have some direct
shares in the company.
So I get, if things are going well,
a dividend for those shares.
So I've never thought it's
fair that I would also get
the highest proportion of a
profit share as well.
So Phil and I had been to
previous conferences where
we'd actually heard from
other companies and they
had incredibly complex
spreadsheets with pivot tables,
different tabs based on
kind of length of service, expertise,
qualification level, age.
that all those factors just
kind of worked out what
part of the profit share you would get.
And we're like,
that just doesn't feel
right for us at all.
So we said, no,
we'll just take the profit
that we're going to share,
which is effectively the
dividend that's paid to the
employee ownership trust.
Then the trustees would say,
we will pay this as a
profit and we just pay it
flat rate across the board.
So everyone gets the same.
The only calculation we do
is a pro rata calculation,
depending on whether you
work full time or part time.
Yeah.
So Phil works full time.
So he earns through the year,
twelve units.
So every unit is worth one month of work.
People take someone who
works from the front desk, for example,
part time.
They might work the
equivalent of eight units
during that year.
So they will get eight
twelfth of their profit share.
Everyone knows it's nice and clear.
It's nice and transparent.
You can see the kind of pot
of money and how it's divided out.
And that's how we do it.
Did you, in that panel discussion,
you put that idea through forward?
Yeah,
it got some good debate because other
companies,
that's just not the right route for them.
So James Delevingne,
who's the CEO of the
Employee Ownership Association,
he has this great phrase,
which is when you've seen
one employee ownership company,
you've seen one employee owned company.
they are all different you
know so they they what's
right for us is not
necessarily going to be
right for another business
in some ways it's quite
easy for us because we've
got a small number of staff
we're all in one location
and it's quite easy for us
to communicate with each
other but if you've got
different sites sometimes
across the world you know
thousands of employees it
does become more
complicated but if you can
create something that's a
really simple model
everyone get understands it
and it's much more
user-friendly for everyone
You do have to tailor it to your business,
like you said.
And, you know,
some of the talks that I'd
attended during the conference,
they spoke about how they
elect employee owner representatives,
basically, to be on their council.
Well, with us,
we don't really have an
established council.
We do to the effect, you know,
we have a board and we have the EO reps,
but we don't have an
established council with many,
many people on it.
Whereas some bigger companies do.
They'll take one...
elected member from each of
the departments, whether it's sales,
marketing, conferencing, you know,
whichever department it might be.
And once they've done that,
they might have seven team
reps and they will sit in
on a board meeting,
but that is not how we operate.
That's what Harvey said,
because we are a small team
and we talk constantly, daily.
I know what's going on in
Katie's world and she knows
what's going on most of the time.
We do have regular team meetings as well.
It's easy for us to keep up with
It doesn't need the formal structure.
It doesn't need a council and all that.
But you now are aware of that.
Exactly.
And that's how we can grow
and develop in the future.
I'm conscious of time,
so I'm going to whip
through a few more pits.
A very quick one,
as much as you can tell us.
How did you celebrate ten years of... Oh,
ten year celebration.
So in a nutshell, we had a party.
I was hoping you'd say that.
It was a party.
It was kind of a party.
It was a dinner.
We held it here.
So we've got
We wanted to recognise not
just the employees.
The key suppliers.
The key suppliers,
the people that have helped
us get to where we are today.
So people that, you know,
some companies might forget about,
for example, our cleaners,
our cleaning team.
Amazing.
Absolutely fantastic.
Do an amazing job.
Been with us through the whole time.
You know,
they keep this place looking sparkly.
Yeah.
And people like that.
Some of our suppliers,
some of our people that we work with,
maybe that produce some of
our graphics or something, you know,
local company down the road.
Everybody, mate.
Some of our partners have
been with us for a long time.
Some of our key partners.
So we had a hundred and twenty of us,
I suppose.
We had it here.
We brought an external
catering company in.
We had a three course meal.
We actually derived some of
our own awards.
So, for example, we had an award for.
Yeah, so.
outstanding service to the centre.
We gave that to a company
that builds stands for us, PG Events,
name drop them there.
We had an award for the cleaners,
we had an award,
we give our employee owner
of the year award out that night.
To Kelly, who's well-deserved.
And we turned it into an
award ceremony and it was a
really nice night, yeah.
There was a few glasses of champagne,
Prosecco.
It was important for us as
well that we held it here at the centre.
We had debated on, you know,
where should we do it?
Could we take it off site somewhere?
You know, maybe a bit more space,
things like that.
But no, we ended up decorating the centre.
Obviously,
we hired someone to help us do that.
We had the venue beautifully styled,
our pot in the house.
When you first walk in,
it's just a really stunning view.
So we set up all the tables.
It looked really lovely.
It was such a great night.
It does sound good.
Felt really special with the awards.
We said from the beginning
about being proud.
There was a proud moment to hold that here,
wasn't it?
And to have that.
Absolutely.
That was good.
I like that.
That sounds so cool.
Two things to really cover
between you is what,
and you possibly have
already covered all of this,
is there anything that was
new in twenty twenty four
as a direct result of being agile,
thanks to being employee owned?
And what are we looking at
for twenty twenty five?
Who wants to start on that?
I'll tell you what we've done this year,
but I'll do it really quickly.
I'll just bullet point it
because you can check out
our website and see all of this.
But one of the things that
we really wanted to do this
year was just introduce
lots of new things.
And the nice thing is we can
experiment a bit with our
calendar and our timetables
and see what people want,
coming back to what we were
mentioning earlier.
So we've introduced
something called Market Day,
which is the second Friday of every month,
which is quite an informal
day where we've got a
number of our exhibitors
who will be just hovering
on their stands.
A couple of them might do a
couple of short talks.
And it's just a really nice
informal way of engaging
with people that you might
want to get some advice
from during your projects.
We developed some drop-in clinics,
which we're taking forward into next year,
which are very focused kind
of half-day sessions.
So we looked at some of the
hot topic subjects like heat pumps,
insulation, solar and battery storage,
stuff that we've covered a
little bit on previous episodes.
And in May,
we really wanted to focus or
sharpen our focus on
sustainable living because
sustainability is a big kind of
thread that we use for
everything that we we do as
a business so we launched a
brand new show called the
festival of sustainable
homes which had a great
kind of family-friendly
atmosphere lots of stuff
going on lots of bunting up
in the center and vegan
food offerings and things
and and it was brilliant so
we're going to bring that
back for next year as well
so um yeah loads of
different events um and
then the one new product
that we launched this year
is something called benchmark
which is a membership for
people who just want an
extra kind of enhanced
service really where they
can really benefit from
spending some quality time
with some of the people
that work on our help desk
some of our exhibitors
which is the only kind of
paid for service that we
offer our visitors and it's
for people kind of at the
beginning of kind of big
projects who yeah just want
to want to get some enhanced support
and into twenty twenty five.
I mean,
I'll stick with you for a second is
that I think by the sounds of it,
you could have a big
assessment coming up.
We can.
Yes.
So we we want to become a B Corp business.
So a bit like ten years ago
where employee ownership was,
there was just a small
number of businesses that
were looking at that model
and now it's grown really,
really quickly.
B Corp is something that I
believe is going to become huge globally,
not just in the UK.
B Corp, if anyone's unaware of it,
it's a certification that
shows that as an organisation of any size,
you have three main considerations.
One is your workers, your employees.
Two is the community that you operate in.
And three is the planet.
So that you're making
decisions that are being
very mindful of the impact
that we have on the environment.
And that just fitted so well with A,
our employee-owned ethos, and B,
the importance that we are
placing on sustainability,
both being sustainable as a business,
but actually more so
perhaps helping people kind
of live and grow
design and build better sustainable homes.
So we have gone through a kind of three,
four month process of
putting in our application
to become B Corp certified.
We're in the queue at the moment,
although they're sending us
various kind of
questions which we're doing
our best to answer.
So we are hopeful, fingers crossed,
to be confirmed that early
in twenty twenty five we
will get our B Corp certification,
which we're very excited about.
And it's a no brainer with
everything that you guys do.
It's kind of almost
made for you guys.
We think so.
Yeah,
so the interesting thing about it is
it's very difficult to get.
It's even harder to keep hold of.
You have to evidence and prove,
quite rightly,
everything that you're
saying in terms of which
suppliers you choose to use,
how you pay your team,
how you look after
contractors that work with
you on a regular basis.
Are you trying to use
businesses that are in the
local community when you possibly can?
Are you supporting local
initiatives and charities?
Are you mindful of your energy use?
There's this massive list of
things that we need to consider.
And we can't just tick a box and say, yes,
we are.
to provide spreadsheets and
documents and reports to
show that that's what we're
doing so when we get it
because we will get it
it'll be something that we
can all be super super
proud of uh but again
hopefully when people are
thinking about whether they
can you know come and trust
the the advice and
information they get from
the nsbrc that's another
badge that kind of gives
people that uh you know
that level of trust and and
us that credibility love it
uh katie a new zone coming
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
So we've got our retrofit
educational zone coming in
twenty twenty five.
So the reason behind why we
wanted to create this new
educational zone is because
nineteen million homes in
the UK are in need of retrofitting.
So this is to increase their
energy efficiency.
So that's in the face of the
climate crisis.
and the cost of living crisis as well.
So it's something that we
think as a centre,
we currently kind of lack a
bit of retrofit resources.
So we have a self-build
educational journey that's
really popular.
We do tours of the
renovation house as well.
So we use these exhibits all the time.
how much people value them
and how much can be learned
from having a tour with one
of our experts or just
looking at it yourself so
we're developing the
retrofit zone to kind of
work alongside the other
two so if you're doing a
retrofit you no longer have
to sort of try and
go to different areas in the
centre and work out what's
going to be relevant for you.
It's essentially going to be
a life-sized
cross-sectional exhibit
looking at different types
of houses in the UK, different ages,
just so that you can basically
work out what's going to be
right for you and your
project and you can learn
from a fabric first
approach what you should be
doing if you're undertaking
a retrofit project Chris I
should give a shout out to
Nick as well who obviously
is featured in several of
these episodes it's
actually off on holiday
today can you believe it
but Nick joined us at the
beginning of this year to
head up these two projects
the B Corp application in
the retrofit zone and has
done an amazing job so he
is our newest employee owner
and he's our first sustainability manager.
So it's great to have
someone who's sort of
genuinely passionate about
it as an individual and
bring that passion into our business.
So he's driving both of
these projects forward
really nicely alongside kind of working
you guys to create these
live episodes with Katie as
well so yeah I think I'd be
a bit mean if we didn't
give him a sort of special
shout out because he's put
so much work into both of these projects.
And I hope you're enjoying
your holiday Nick.
Very quickly, Phil,
anything new from you or is
yours really picking up
with what these guys are doing?
I mean, tying it in really.
So we've all said, you know,
a lot of the technologies that are coming,
new technologies to people, heat pumps,
that sort of stuff, solar panels,
maybe not new,
but the technology is
constantly evolving.
And for a lot of people,
visitors walking through our doors,
seeing all of our stands,
how do I use this technology in my house?
And maybe I don't want to
build my own house,
but I do have this house I
want to bring up to scratch.
So we want to be able to show,
so like I say,
with this new retrofit zone,
you can use this technology.
Let's show you how.
It's the missing piece, I guess.
The missing jigsaw puzzle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we've seen certainly since the pandemic,
actually,
that people are spending more
money on their existing properties now.
And they want to, you know,
sustainability is a big buzzword.
We're also mindful of our energy bills,
aren't we?
And also the reliability of
our energy and where it's
coming from as well.
And so that creates lots of
questions and it's a very
complicated area.
So as Katie said,
these sort of nineteen million,
we've even heard twenty six million homes,
but a lot of homes in the
UK that are of a really poor standard.
They're cold in the winter,
they overheat in the summer,
they're consuming a huge
amount of gas and electricity.
So people arrive at the
centre with lots of questions.
This new zone is only a certain size,
so there's only so much
we're going to be able to show,
but our hope is that we can
signpost people to credible,
reliable suppliers and
providers of either
services or information,
and just get them to start
asking the right questions.
And, you know,
I can't go around all the houses,
but like a couple of things
that stood out to me was things like,
for example,
how and this is a big one for me,
how we can actually use
grey water for flushing
loos and things like that
and have systems in place
that enable that.
We've got a huge problem in
our house with limescale really bad,
like causing us problems.
And we've had the occasional
leak because of limescale.
and that there is some
amazing stuff that can go
just outside your house
that will just not only
stop it but clean up what
problems have happened
internally you know there's
so many things above and
beyond the obvious so yeah
and I think that's a key
one which is what I love
about the shows is that
come in with a
predetermined set of
questions that you want
answered or you want to
investigate things but I
think it's also do wander
around because there are
things that you go oh hang
on a minute I hadn't considered that
I didn't know I didn't know that.
Correct, and that's a key thing.
What did you say it was,
over two hundred odd?
Two hundred exhibitors, yeah.
You'll find actually,
because it's quite
difficult to see everything
in one day here,
or your head will just go poosh, exactly.
So you'll see someone come
at the start of the project,
then you'll see them again
in a couple of weeks, a couple of months,
and then what's nice,
you get to see the visitors,
how's your project come along?
I've heard that a lot.
And that's a lovely thing,
seeing someone coming through the doors,
just bought a plot of land,
and then two years' time, you see, oh,
we're just coming to choose our windows,
the house is almost finished,
or whatever.
And actually,
that's the thing that we were
talking about at the conference, actually,
was
we really are going to start
celebrating our case
studies in twenty twenty
five and onwards because the case studies,
they really represent us
achieving our why.
You know,
so came back to what we were
saying at the beginning
about kind of helping
people build those better
sustainable homes.
Well,
we've got a whole bank of case
studies that Katie produces
and puts together on our website.
which are people that have
done just that you know by
you know and the centre has
played a really key part in
them in their journey so
that's where you think yeah
do you know what we're
actually delivering on our
purpose and that is the
most fantastic thing it's
really rewarding yeah
definitely yeah because
it's emotional from them uh
and on that note of course
the good news is the next
show is actually a
three-dayer uh that they
can come for isn't it so
friday the thirty first of january and
Then Saturday, Sunday,
first and second of February.
So Friday, Saturday, Sunday of those.
Go on to the NSBRC website,
what's on events and then
the National Self-Builder
Renovation Show.
We've got two episodes in January,
I believe,
early and late leading into
that so that people know
what to expect and
everybody excited about that.
So but that's the next big show, isn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It is indeed.
January is always our
busiest month of the year.
Really?
So I think people have had a
bit of a break over Christmas.
They've kind of taken stock
and maybe re-energised,
but also noticed all the
things that have gone wrong
in their home as well.
All the things they'd like to improve.
Had all the family around to realise,
oh my goodness, there's not enough space.
We need a granny annex,
we need an extension,
we're going to get rid of that old boiler,
whatever it is.
That wasn't the granny, the old boiler.
That was their old boiler.
LAUGHTER
And so they come into the
centre of the new year, kind of refresh,
right,
we are going to commit to our project.
So January is a fantastic month.
And that show kind of just
brings it all together really nicely.
Yeah, it's always most popular.
So make sure you get
yourself signed on for that.
Totally free, isn't it?
If you book in advance.
Yeah,
you just need to book in advance
through our website.
Yes.
So make sure you do that
because that makes it a no brainer.
So that's Friday,
the thirty first of January, first,
second of February.
So Friday, Saturday,
Sunday of that weekend.
Jump on.
We'll be back with with
episodes in January as well
to lead into that.
This one should be going out
being broadcast.
We're doing it now so that
it's broadcast in the
evenings for you so that
it's a little bit more
likely to be able to watch
it rather than during the
day when you're all working
and everything.
So six thirty.
This is going out on the fifth of December,
but it'll be there for you
to catch up with all of this.
But if you're even watching it a week,
a month after this episode was broadcast,
please don't hesitate.
Get in touch with any
questions for the team.
You can put them in the comments,
but if you want to make absolutely sure,
is there a generic email address?
Inquiries out or anything?
Harvey out.
I would do marketing.
At msbrc.co.uk.
That's the best one.
They'll come through to both of us.
Chris,
if anyone's got any questions about
employee ownership and they
might be considering it for
their own business or
they'd like to work for one
or would like to convert
their existing company and
have a word with the owner about it,
we are always more than
happy to have a chat about
our story and give you some resources,
including the Employee
Ownership Association's website.
So more than happy to hear
about anyone who'd like to know more.
No,
and I think it's really been insightful
to see it firsthand of what
it means to be part of that
and certainly seems to be working.
Guys,
thank you so much for joining us on this.
And well done for doing your first one.
Hopefully we'll have you back again.
I'm sure you will.
No, I told you it was easy.
No problem at all.
So that's it from us for episode five.
We'll see you in January for episode six.
In the meantime,
have a fabulous Christmas
and a very happy new year.
Cheers.