Employee ownership is increasingly understood to be a powerful strategy for helping lower-income Americans build wealth, while also helping companies succeed and create good jobs. It is usually often thought of as a primarily financial transaction, but it also involves skill development in important ways. Becoming a co-owner of the company where you work changes the way people think about their jobs, and they often find themselves developing new skills – including financial management and “soft” skills – because of that change.

In an era where artificial intelligence and other technologies are rapidly transforming the workplace, this discussion could not be timelier. It may be that employee ownership is a model we may all need to understand better as we develop a new, positive vision of the future of work.

Join Tom Strong of Shift Work Forward and Rachel Merfalen of Good Future and the Tennessee Center for Employee Ownership as they examine a broad-based approach to building worker wealth through ownership and skills. They will be joined as well by Paul Boney, an Account Manager at Inline Electric Supply, who will share his story of becoming an employee-owner and how it changed his experience at work.