Bristol businesses will tomorrow be told how to ‘unleash the entrepreneur’ within their employees through a new initiative being run in the city.
The Building Better Businesses scheme is based on the simple proposition that the best, most efficient, most profitable way to operate a business is to give everybody in it a voice in how it is run and a stake in the outcome.
The initiative is being launched by experts from the Bristol offices of national law firm TLT and chartered accountants Baker Tilly with the 
Great Game UK, a Bristol-based consultancy specialising in employee engagement – or Open-Book Management.
TLT’s head of employee incentives Ben Watson said: “We want to create a community of people interested in actively discussing and learning about the benefits of employee engagement and ownership. But to do this, we recognise we need to bring together individuals with different skill sets. We see this as an opportunity for South West businesses to work together, with a carefully selected support network, to build sustainable and improved business models.”
The launch event takes place at Baker Tilly’s Bristol office tomorrow. A series of networking and workshop events will be staged later this year aimed at breaking down some of the barriers and myths surrounding employee engagement and ownership.
TLT and Baker Tilly will be working with attendees to look at the legal, governance and tax structures involved.
The Great Game UK is led by Arend Welmers, a professional coach to CEOs and executive teams with a proven track record in designing and implementing successful performance strategies.
He said: “We’ll show businesses how to get employees thinking, feeling and acting like owners and how they can implement a powerful performance strategy that is great for improving profits and remarkably successful in improving the working lives of their people.
“Open-Book Management works because employees get a chance to act – to take responsibility rather than just ‘doing their job’. Each employee knows enough about the company to understand how their actions will affect business results – and understand that they share a stake in the outcome.”
The series will start in September, with a business game, run by the Great Game UK, where Bristol companies are challenged to use employee participation to improve their business performance and generate an additional £10,000 operating profit within 30 days.
For more information contact Arend Welmers at the Great Game UK on arend@greatgameuk.com or 0789 999 2392
