Worker Co-op Findings from the 2021 Cooperative Governance Research Initiative

all right welcome everyone to our webinar on worker Co-op findings from The Cooperative governance research initiative um uh we're going to go ahead and get started um Julio why don't you come on right now actually and explain there is going to be Spanish interpretation for the duration of this 75 minute webinar so Julio why don't you just come on we'll go through some housekeeping after that um but I'll have you explain to folks in Spanish uh how to get into the interpretation channel oh I can't hear you bu buen [Music] hi everybody today we welcome you to this seminar which is going to have have Spanish simultaneous translation available if you would prefer to listen to this seminar in Spanish please go to the bottom of your um er screen and choose the interpretation icon click there and choose interpretation in your preferred language gas great thank you so much Adana all right welcome everyone um I hope you'll get settled into the right language Channel um I want to thank several people before we get started first I'd like to thank um the Democracy at work Institute and the US Federation of worker cooperatives for providing both financial support um for this report and the webinar and the simultaneous translation or interpretation excuse me um and for providing uh feedback on the report as we were working through various drafts I also would like to thank my colleague Yanni leang who is um the researcher at the center who's been doing a lot of the data analysis um and writing with me for this report and then lastly I want to thank Megan Webster and Abby grot who are running the zoom technology they did all the promotions and registration and everything so um a lot of people worked to bring this both report and webinar to you today um I'm Courtney burner I'm the executive director of the University of Wisconsin's Center for cooperatives and and um I'd like to move into a little bit of housekeeping before we get started so if I get next slide please so um we already went through the Spanish interpretation so hopefully you found your way to the correct um place so that you can um best listen to the webinar this session is being recorded we will share a PDF of the slides after the webinar if you have any questions please put them in the Q&A box there will be time at the end um but please go ahead and enter questions as they come to you uh my colleague uh our colleague Abby will be monitoring the chat box um and then two uh links that Abby will be dropping into the chat one is a demographic survey that we ask you to complete um at some point during the webinar um we collect this data to make sure that we are serving a broad um and diverse audience and uh in compliance um with some of our funders the second link um and this is a bit of a spoiler alert but the next the 2024 Cooperative governance research initiative survey is coming out um next week and if you are listening to this and you're like oh I don't know if my Co-op is um did that back in 2021 but we want to be involved in 2024 um it's an opt-in uh form where you can provide contact information um for your Cooperative so please um check those two links out um before I introduce our panelists for today I just want to tell you a little bit about the structure of our time together um I'll spend a little bit of time framing up the Cooperative governance research initiative and some a couple of findings from the um worker Co-op report that we just released and then I have found this to be the most satisfying way for me to present the data um and often for audiences to listen to it is it then I'll present a little bit of data and then ask a couple questions of our panelists who are all members of worker cooperatives to reflect on that issue that topic that challenge um in their own Cooperative life what's going well what's been hard um what tools have they used that have been really impactful so um after my brief sort of overview we'll move into that portion of our time together um which will be alloted back and forth a little bit of data um some conversation and then our plan is to have 15 minutes at the end um to ask questions next slide please so now I would like to introduce our three panelists the first is Deborah Schultz she's a member of Cooperative care which is the largest and oldest rural Home Care Cooperative uh Cooperative care was established in 2001 and currently has 55 employees 25 of whom are member owners Deborah started at Cooperative care in 2006 as a caregiver um and she came into the co-op with a background in finance and for quite some time now has served as the finance manager Deb was first elected to the board in 2008 and current ly serves as the board chair next we have Matt Herman he is a member of Namaste solar a residential and Commercial Solar Company in Colorado it was founded by Blake Jones in 2005 and converted to a worker co-op in 2011 Namaste has approximately 220 employees about 60 are members and 15 to 20 are sort of in their candidacy period and Matt joined Namaste 10 years ago and is currently the director of onm services which I don't actually know what that me means maybe we'll find out what that means later um he has been on the Namaste board now for three years and is just finishing up his first year as board chair um so welcome Matt and last but certainly not least we have Daniela Pressler uh who is currently a member of colanar Cooperative consulting which is a three- member Cooperative that launched in 2020 to support the sustainable development of worker cooperatives and Democratic workplaces um her work their work colan's work focuses on racial and gender equity and uses popular education methods um uh for working with cooperatives prior to launching colanar Dany spent seven years as a member of hom Green Home uh which is a worker-owned home cleaning cooperative and sort to given Danny's diverse experience work working with cooperatives she will be weaving in stories from colanar from home green home and from other immigrant Le cooperatives she has supported as a consultant so as you can see we have a really rich um group of people with diverse experiences and um diverse cooperatives in terms of size industry um and parts of the country so so before we um get get to talk to them I want to tell you a little bit more about the Cooperative governance research initiative uh the center W Center for cooperatives launched um what we affectionately call kuber in 2021 uh with the goal of collecting data on um governance practices across sectors and over time in order order to provide data um and tools that co-ops can use to reflect upon and improve their governance practices um while this is an academic Endeavor and that it's research that's taking place at an academic institution um the orientation has always been around applicability and relevance to The Cooperative Community um and so it's been really important to us to find ways either through sector specific reports through one-on-one conversations with boards through trainings um through webinars like this to make sure that we're we're bringing this research um back and having conversations um with people in The Cooperative Community about how um how this work is useful to them so the 2021 data collection consisted of a survey covering the topics that you see on this slide as well as follow-up interviews um with 21 individuals from 11 cooperatives in eight different sectors and two of those cooperatives were worker owned two of the 11 next slide please so in the 2021 survey 500 cooperatives completed the survey which I admit felt like a massive accomplishment for our first year we weren't sure when we sent out this 30 minute survey if anyone would take it so we were heartened by that um and as you can see from this slide we had very pretty good uh geographic representation as well as diversity across Industries we also had a lot of diversity in terms of the type of Cooperative so consumer versus worker versus producer owned and age of cooperatives next slide please of those 500 um overall participants 73 were worker cooperatives um the 2021 cougary sample also included I just want to note seven multi-stakeholder cooperatives that have a membership class for workers but due to data limitations those seven U multi-stakeholder cooperatives Were excluded from this report but um they are in the overall data so as you can see not surprisingly the greatest representations from Wisconsin we have the best list and the most name recognition as the University of Wisconsin Center for cooperatives in our home state um but also decent representation from California New York and Massachusetts so looking at this sort of Universe of worker cooperatives that participated in the 2021 survey um the size ranged from two to around 220 members um with a median um of about eight employees and eight members and as you can see from the chart on the left most respondents most worker Co-op respondents are considered small or micro in size based on the number of full-time employees um worker cooperatives are also very young as most of us know um you know worker co-ops are um growing pretty rapidly and so um which is really exciting for the movement and that was reflected in our data so 70% of the participating worker co-ops were established between 2010 and 2021 the year we ran the survey next slide please so a little bit of information on some of the board composition data that we collected 52 so over just over half of the participating worker co-ops practice direct democracy and what I mean by that is that all members of The Cooperative also serve on the board of directors um so about half and half um you know small these cooperatives are much smaller than other cooperatives our sample when you look at large Consumer cooperatives Credit Unions producer cops um and their boards also tend to be fairly small as well so the mean or average board size was seven members median was five um but there was a range of two to 42 um and again on average worker co-ops um have the smallest Boards of all the types of cooperatives on average um that we survey all right so next slide please so we also collected did some data on board composition around sort of the demographics of board members um for age we used the generation thresholds from Pew Research Center um that reflect the groups that you see there on the chart um maybe not surprisingly but worker Co-op boards are younger than those of cougary respondents overall um the average worker Co-op board is made up of slightly more than half Millennials um and gen Z whereas the average Board of Cooperative governance research initiative respondents overall is only uh 25% Millennials or gen z um on average worker Coop boards are also less tenured again if you're thinking about like how what percentage of the the participants um were established between 2010 and 2021 again not hugely surprising we have newer co-ops um but on in the average participating worker Co-op 85% of directors have served on the board for fewer than 10 years compared to 70% in all Kree respondents all right next slide we also asked about the gender of board members um and worker co-ops as a whole are more gender diverse than some other types of cooperatives such as producer co-ops insurance mutuals and purchasing co-ops um but interestingly the gender makeup of worker Co-op boards can vary greatly between Industries um so for example a worker-owned child care or Home Care Cooperative is's far more likely to have an almost all female board whereas a worker owned construction firm is more likely to have a predominantly mail board um across all cougary participants the share of men on the average board is 62% so again a lot more gender diversity um across all worker co-ops um but once you start to look at individual co-ops and their industry some of that shifts around again just depending on the um the industry and then the chart on the left shows the racial distribution of board members among participating worker co-ops and um across the different types of co-ops in the cougary sample so consumer producer worker Etc worker co-ops had the highest average share of the board made up of Hispanic or Latino um or latinx directors so there is again is um more racial and ethnic diversity in worker co-ops than in some of these other um Co-op types so I just wanted to share some of those like sort of high level data there's there's a lot more um you know one of the challenges of this project actually is like the there's a lot to talk about and so um sifting and winnowing the best things to talk about so I wanted to share a bit on board composition and then before we dive into more on the data I actually have a question for Dany um that I think will provide some helpful context for our participants so Danny you know youve worked closely uh with several immigrant Le cooperatives which often incorporate as llc's rather than Cooperative corporations um just so that everyone has a sense of this as we move into the conversation about some governance structures and practices can you talk about how this legal difference can impact the governance structures and practices of some of these cooperatives that you've worked with yeah thank you KY I'm very grateful to be here um and I thank you for the invitation yes um as IM um we have like several barriers as immigrants and and there's like uh llc's legal structure tends to be more flexible on the governance structure and even though it's not um well there's no there there's no like a like a law about you know uh Cooperative corporations in every state so the llc's are very it's like everywhere very similar and the governance structure tends to be like very flexible so you can you can structure something very horizontal you can decide to be to have or not a board you can decide to have um or not um committees and and in the sense that we've been always trying to people not um not be misled and think that they are employees of the co of the cooperative and not member uh work owners um we usually recommend to have uh committees and general assemblies as the government structure and not to have like a a board of directors um and that um that can be can happen in with with LC legal structure so that makes it easier and people are well usually more engaged because they they have a lot to do there's roles um they have to cover uh for this to happen as see so yeah that's I would say um the main difference great thank you so much all right next slide please Megan so when we think of governance we often think of the board of directors first um but since governance is really about Democratic member control I'd like to start our conversation today with member engagement so the cougary survey asked about election and annual meeting turnout both of which unsurprising were very high in worker co-ops um we also asked how co-ops engage members Beyond elections and annual meetings um forums as you can see on the slide were the only specific strategy that worker co-ops they say said they used more often than cougary respondents overall um worker co-ops also listed other strategies more often uh worker co-ops were much less likely to use social media events a newsletter and a comment box which isn't really surprising given the small size of many worker co-ops and the employment-based nature of the relationship between members and the co-ops um so the value proposition even in a in a small worker Co-op though the value proposition of democratic member control erodes or it can erode if it doesn't feel tangible or meaningful to members you each come from cooperatives of different sizes and industries um what strategies or what's a particular useful strategy that you have used in your Cooperative to keep members engaged and to make sure that membership feels meaningful um Deb do you want to start sure good afternoon everyone um so I'm coming to you from Wisconsin Cooperative care um been in business since 2001 and this particular issue um has been an evolving and changing um challenge um you know the normal things that you would do you know be on the board would keep you engaged serving on a committee would keep you engaged um but it we have found that it's generally not enough we you know need more people to participate um one of the things that we've been doing um is quarterly meetings so you know every three months we pull the group together all of the members together uh to do some kind of a training some kind of a business update and some discussion um and that has started to help a little bit but we are searching and looking for other ways um to engage members all the time and I would imagine that you know Co-op to co-op you know that probably just needs to be looked at on a pretty regular basis depending on you know what kind of Engagement you're having great thanks de Matt you want to chime in and then Danny yeah absolutely so I mean for our Cooperative you know I think the story We tend to tell is you know patronage dividends and profit sharing are obviously the most clear way uh to show value of the Cooperative but it doesn't necessarily drive that engagement and belief that there are you know benefits uh based on our our governance structure and for us there there's continually been this you know at a little over 200 folks the The Narrative of delution of our government structure is is ever present so frankly we've been challenging our uh ory co-ownership to you know Embrace a perspective of abundance and evolution you know we're getting more diverse perspectives that allow us to come up with better proposals and make better decisions um you as Deb said there's opportunities for committees and task forces and things like that that folks can join but um the most effective way to proactively reinforce the benefit of governance is you know for us debate and voting um and ideally on somewhat controversial items um and ideally led by a different cast of characters so you know and it also requires us to set regular meetings right we need to get together to actually have that discourse so um in an effort to show and not tell I mean I talk about the benefits constantly as as board shared to kind of carry that torch just been kind of throwing some grenades into the mix of uh to try to spark that spicy conversation U for instance proposed a companywide bonus uh at our last Retreat as a coowner Le action and it sparked some incredibly passionate conversation and really importantly pulled out some dissenting voices in the group um from my perspective the result from something like that isn't actually that important it's really providing that space for folks to feel that passion and and feel empowered to speak up to it and you know just remind folks the gift of democracy is not getting your way necessarily it's that you have an opportunity for your voice to be heard and to hear those that disagree with you so you know I think best way we've done it is is again actually push for votes that that spark some controversial conversation thanks Matt Danny yeah um if if you if you allow me I can share like two uh like my yeah my former Cooperative where were between 10 and 15 people all the time we were like it varies uh it varied year by year but I think that um I agree with uh everything that you both are saying Devon uh and Matt and and also what we did we we we actually did monthly meetings as we were um as for every um decision we had to actually have an assembly meeting um but uh there was like word behind from the committee to bring the proposal or to bring the issue to that was necessary to make a decision on and um so we will have monthly meetings what um what we did realize in in that one was that how people were were it's not that they were not engaged they were so busy that it was so it's so hard it was like eight hours working cleaning houses right and then coming into a meeting was really hard um so we didn't have an issue when even when we had like emerging meetings uh because it was something that we needed to make a decision really fast they will come and and stay at the office so I think that um they were pretty engaged but we a way that I think that it was a very um change perspective of it was like um recognizing this and having like a a day of meetings so you won't work it's a day of meetings and we'll we'll close the The Cooperative or we'll switch like the well we we stated one uh specific day so we didn't have to do it every month but uh but that's what we like that was like a really important thing so it was like it's felt that okay so I need to be in this meeting this is you know we're not working and we and getting paid for being in the meeting as well so that they didn't feel that they lost um a day of work right M um and and that's on that side and in our side I think that um we're three we're very engaged we're very invested uh so it's it's kind of easy um but I think that um in general when we talk about this this issues when we're um doing trainings it's like this is your baby like um you know you babies have needs babies have you know there you struggle with babies you have beautiful days with babies right just the smile can change everything that you know that had happened before all the vomiting and all the stuff and it's like yeah everything changes and I think that's that should be we shouldn't be have the need to you know to to that people need to be engaged need to needs to be have things to be engaged it should be natural right so I think that having roles in the Cooperative having reports uh on areas uh keeping people engaged I know that sometimes for us it's also struggling when we have a lot of clients like at the same time but it's a it's something that we keep as a priority we have a very structured set of meetings where we you know 45 minutes here when hour were here when I were there and it's like for specific things that we do together um and we have a general assembly we don't uh uh we don't have a board and we are each one of us is a committee have our own role so I think that that switching the roles we're very we rotate the roles all the time not in terms of acific like I'm finances and you know other members are Communications and marketing but I am uh but I think that the roles uh to the meetings also change so yeah that would be also engaging great thank you Danny um if I could get the next slide so we also asked questions about onboarding ongoing board training and board evaluations um onboarding activities among participating worker co-ops were largely consistent with cougary participants as a whole um some of the things that were less common among worker co-ops not surprisingly um meeting with Senior Management only 45% of the worker co-ops that responded have a CEO or another type of highest ranking employee so an executive director GM um and then they were also less likely use external or third-party training um which I thought was interesting there are um especially as the sort of number of organizations that are providing support to worker co-ops continues to grow and and strengthen really that Eco broader ecosystem um more common among worker cooperatives I found this funny in so many of the questions like other activities or like other ways of doing things were the most common um response we'll get to that later in the context of meeting practices um so moving on on to the next slide there were a couple key differences between the training practices the sort of ongoing training practices of participating worker co-ops and all kubri respondents so a higher proportion of worker co-ops reported training board members and meeting facilitation conflict resolution and social responsibility sustainability and social impact um which I think is interesting and that conflict resolution one um worker co-ops we'll come back to this later if we have enough time but also we're more confident that their board meetings provided space for healthy descent and so I think we're seeing some connections there um as well and then the last slide I'll share on this sort of board development space is around um board evaluations and I would argue that there's a lot of room for improvement in the area of board evaluations though this isn't just true for worker co-ops this is true across um across co-ops so less than onethird of participating worker co-ops reported cond in annual evaluations of board Committees of board chairs of individual directors and the board as a whole and this may be reflective of the fact that over half have direct democracy and they're finding other ways of accountability um uh amongst the group um but yeah I would argue that there's some room here to grow so my question though for our panelists I want to Circle back to onboarding um and one of the things we talked about during our alignment call so the four of us got together and had a long chat about how we'd approached this webinar um so one of the things we talked about during that call was the challenge of bringing people up to speed when they join the board um and we talked about how in a worker Co-op the seeds of board Recruitment and education and even member education can begin as early as the hiring process so I think it'd be helpful for each of you if you could describe your candidacy period so how long someone works with the co-op before they can apply for membership um and share any employee or director onboarding practices you've used that have been particularly effective um at getting people sort of in the pipeline and ready for board service um Danny you want to start with you and then we'll go back Danny Matt and then Deb yeah again I'm gonna like share two experiences because I think it's it's important um so the first one we did have it was challenging to have candy period um they will start to be a member from the beginning um and so what we did we created a very on board a very uh rast presentation of the business before you join and you're voted in so what we did we did like two weeks of training um not training but presentation of the business so we will do um every day sorry every other day we will do do like um two or three hours with someone and we will go through membership um how do people come in and out um of the business the next day was like governance committees what what does each committee you know uh involves and because it was like also um a a requirement when you join to join a committee at least one so committees uh so they will have to make that election um and then um and then we would do like every part of the of the operating agreement we will go through and then we will open books for this new investor actually to the LLC right and be very explicit and this is something that we deal with right um be very explicit and very intentional of understanding why we are worker owners and not employees of the cooperative and that that voice uh carries out a lot of responsibilities and we have you know we have some how uh structure or something but there's always uh room for for new ideas and and that started like to feel it's really hard to this is a Cooperative this is what we do we every how you know one person one vote and it's thought that in two weeks we could achieve that but I think our goal was to achieve the sense that you have a voice right and what does that mean you're going to see it more most likely in the practice maybe but that it comes with a responsibility it's not only benefits and um so I think that that was very and and at the end like we shared that model with um with a couple of people because they found it that it was like very well structured and they will also have like the cleaning the cleaning you know uh uh the cleaning uh in in training right because it was a specific uh train Mark the cleaning um model that we had so they we have it was everything part of it and then they will have like they will be voted in and they will start like a um we will call that um member I forgot the name but it was like oh like member in in in the first period right um of the cooperative and that meant that only meant that we will have more check-ins during the first six months with that person and that there will be they will have in the in the in the field they will have a mentor during that period as well right and you will be switched between teams so that that um will help you and not not with the evaluation my mindset with the checkin mindset like how can we help you to to become one of our of our our members our value members and then uh on this side in our cooperate right now I I think we all come with a lot of um experience and knowledge about um so I think that it's been a it's been easier to set up but it it was also like a a challenge okay so again um starting to become like you you become a member right away a full member so we decided to collaborate as we are Consulting we started we decided to have a period with collaboration with consultants and with the expectation I mean with the with the offer to after um a certain period of time become a member of working Cooperative or that you they could um they could apply to to become one right so it's like uh it was kind of different so we start like working collaborations so we just did this whole process and then we have very uh I think also good onboarding setup um and we try to also Mentor in each area that we that we go we're only two the the other member was the third so um so yeah so we I think we tried to do and go over everything like the first couple months we've been working that we work together great thanks Jenny Matt that's a great question um you know I like the concept of sort of planting seeds active Recruitment and onboarding for the board members you're trying to get on staff here and um you know as far as playing seeds before you become a coer Nate so there's a one-year candidacy period you go through and and through that we have you know mentorship our Mentor that's assigned to you and we have six learning sessions one which is actually focused on the board so structure how you become board member roles and responsibilities things like that on the active recruiting side um the board members will typically identify and these are for internal board members that we have typically we'll identify folks that might fill out gaps in our representation so say we have everyone on the commercial side of our business and we don't have anyone that's that's in that residential side which is half of our organization we might be more intentional in recruiting folks that are in that space or perhaps they fill out a gap we have hey we don't have anyone representing accounting let's go find someone that's in that that boat as far as onboarding we'll we'll typically run through some initial calls with our internal board members that come on uh we have a repository of information we'll summarize we have you know roles responsibilities but really I think that the most challenging piece for folks is to distill two topics what value can you bring as an internal board member you know not having you know really robust business Acumen right you might be an installer um and what can you bring in the actual board meeting um I know we get we'll get into this later in the the call here but you know what perspectives are valuable and how do you speak to those during our board calls and it's and it's incredibly constating to new board members sometimes they feel what am I even doing here and and so I think being really clear to help nurture those folks and provide scaffolding as to how they can accomplish those two things and instill confidence in them um is is really the most important piece that we find so great thanks Matt Deb candacy period and things that you've found helpful in onboarding um so when we hire somebody knew we have a 90-day probationary period um after the 90 days based on performance um membership is brought to the board for a vote um based on what our bylaws say and um we then offer membership to someone I'm I'm loving hearing even myself hearing um all the other things that everybody else is doing because it's like oh well yeah maybe that maybe that maybe that um uh but we don't have a lot of requirements um we don't have a lot of expectations at this time so they you know they can take membership they can pay their membership fee and and then they're a member and can start uh reaping some of the benefits um as a as a board um we hope that somebody will want to um be on the board and have their Viewpoint shared um that's kind of how we talk about it in the interview we talk about it along the way in the 90 days that um you know you can earn bonuses from being a member um but I got to admit compared to to Matt and Daniela um you know we are on the other side of not having quite enough as far as training goes we do not have a formal training program uh for new board members either um and I think if anybody were to ask um some of our board members currently and in the past um Unfortunately they get a fire hose of information um that happens in meeting one meeting two meeting three um you know and it takes a while it does take a person uh a you know I would say a year to be even comfortable with all of the information they're giving all of the finances all of the things that um weren't said um you know you're working in the field you're working with a client you're not you're not in the office you're not hearing the information you're not readily seeing it um it's a little tricky it's a little tricky to get that information to all of our members and and we're pretty small in my in my opinion we have we have about 53 employees we have about 24 members um so you know at this point I I struggle and I have desire to make sure that all 24 of those people know everything um so that they so they can feel comfortable running for the board and then coming into the board so great thanks so much Deb all right Megan if I get the next slide we're going to move on quickly to board Recruitment and elections um so as I mentioned earlier just over half of participating worker co-ops practice direct democracy so the number of worker co-ops that provided information on elections is quite small um I'll leave this slide up here and just jump into the question so um first for Deb and Matt um one of the challenge that I and I'm sure others on this have either experienced or heard um from cooperatives that have what I'll just say office staff and field staff um is that it can be harder for people who work in the field to serve on the board that there can be barriers there um what have your two co-ops done to try to make board service more accessible to folks who are working maybe in the field um Matt you want to go first and then D sure you know I I think one of the first things is is that proactive recruitment piece to just get folks that aren't it's your point aren't in the office you don't have that kind of water cooler time to run into someone say Hey you know actually have you considered running for the board so so really identifying folks um that you feel like would be a good fit and and actively going to chat with them um once you get those folks on the board um making sure to coordinate those meetings around times that typically work well for our field staff so earlier in the morning so they could still potentially go out the rest of the day um and be able to make time for delivering on installation or maintenance and things like that we also try to have mentorship opportunities for those folks if we hold our you know we'll get together as internal board members on a regular interval making sure to hold those after hours so those folks can actually make it to those those calls um and we we also pay folks for that time I know we talk about compensation later but especially for folks that are in the field um making sure that that time is compensated is is critically important for them um and then I think the last thing just setting expectations with project managers folks like that that know this is coming they can plan around it and uh make sure that person's feeling very comfortable taking that time great thanks Matt D so um one of this has been a struggle um um and I I would I would venture guess that a lot of corops kind of struggle with this um but we in the last couple of years have made a conscious effort like okay these committees need to meet there there needs to be work done we need to um we need to start addressing some things um so pulling these committees together so and sometimes it's a choice um for us in particular we're either going to provide service to the client or we're going to bring them in for a meeting because in some cases we can't do both so it may mean we're leaving clients on the table there some billable hours on the table to accommodate that um you know to get board members and to get just even members um that are on these committees in to have discussions uh we've just recently said okay we're doing a board meeting every third Wednesday we're doing um a membership meeting 8 to 10 every Wednesday or every other um and it's just a conscious effort and you know just got to stick to that now one of the things we do pay um our board members and our caregivers uh who come into to come in for meetings we do pay them wage um so they they do not bear any burden uh by doing board work for coming in you know and not doing their normal you know the the normal hat that they have so we do compensate hour for hour um you know all of their board work and contribution so great thank you okay for time sake I'm going to hop into the next topic which is meeting practices um so we all know that meetings are a big part of Cooperative life um and among cougary respondents worker co-ops held the highest number of meetings on average in the last year but they had the shortest meeting so the most meetings but they on average were the shortest so 80% of worker Coop board meetings in the previous 12 months lasted two hours or less um so one of the other things that varied I mentioned this earlier is that agenda setting practices which is what you see on this slide differed pretty significantly between worker co-ops and other cougary respondents so worker co-ops reported using other processes for setting the agenda more than sort of some of the traditional Pathways which is like the board chair or the CEO or the board chair and CEO jointly um and so examples of other processes cited by respondents included you know the board chair but with input from the full board um all board members were involved all members were involved um specific circles maybe if they're using sociocracy which there's a there's an explanation of sociocracy in the report I won't I won't get into that here um or committees or even a subset of the board so maybe the board chair the secretary or the board chair and the cheap Operating Officer um several respondents noted um or and highlighted the sort of collective nature of their agenda setting process and um and even that this responsibility might be rotated among members next slide please um this was similar in terms of meeting facilitation so again 40% said they have some other structure um this is not what we saw you know 7% across all respondents um listed another structure and um far fewer worker co-ops delegate this responsibility to the CEO or a sort of a a um top uh of highest ranking employee or the board chair um and again these responses make sense um because worker co-ops again also often rotate meeting facilitation among members and um I think there's the most diversity sort of in practices across worker co-ops than like across consumer co-ops or across producer co-ops there's just a ton of differences whether folks are practicing direct democracy whether they're quite small or quite large whether they have a CEO or highest ranking employee or not um and so they're finding a lot of other sort of like answers that don't fit into these buckets um uh as much so um the question for all of you is cooperatives require a lot of meetings as we know and that meeting time is precious uh it can be easy to go off on tangents and sort of difficult to strike the balance between process and outcomes both are important and when so to how do you hold both um so question what practices or structures specific practices or structures have you used to make sure the board is getting the most out of its time together and Danny why don't we start with you and then go Deb and then Matt we teach this but in practice no it's and we try to do you to walk the talk um and I think that I think that the the the the set of meetings that you have need to be comprehensive on the work you do right right the industry you have the amount of members you have right so that it's um it it's not a burden it's an opportunity to be together and discuss and make decisions together or hear this report right so I think the agenda it's uh it's so important for example we started with a meeting on Fridays five that it was like two hours and it became three4 I don't know many hours because we're meting once you know once a week right at the beginning then we restructured that and we said okay so we need we need a check in every Monday so that we all know where we at and how we organize the week for everyone and then um and that will be an opportunity also to check on any uh any any scheduling issue right and so we will do that and we will we will we will go over there next two weeks right and then we had like a like a income meeting which was okay everything is about sales um you know members and then we started like growing and said okay we need we needed a platform so we got a and it started working really good before we got um air table as well for um for CRM but then as was something that will help us do the work together right so we don't have to meet all the time we have a profile we know our stuff we can you know um tag each other right if we need anyone's help but we have a meeting of reporting this where we at what we need what is in Horizon what is coming up um do I need to set up a meeting an extra meeting and I think that's that's the way we we we've been struggling I mean we been structuring this meetings um to be very consistent with with with our needs to work together and to keep each other accountable and I think um this last we just had a retreat and we went into the strategy um and planning for for this rest of the year in 2025 and on the beginning of 2025 and and we set up a new structure of meetings and this is and I think that it it's been like developing better I think we've been like we we have this uh we have monthly meetings we have weekly meetings we have um every other week meetings and I think that um we we rotate facilitation and taking notes and timer and time uh eke Keepers and we do also uh in terms of because what happens and Tangle sometimes the the meeting is because you don't have where to bring an issue right so something happens and you get in this conversations that lead to another one right so I think that what we do we are all facilitat that makes it easier but I think that we um we we have an opportunity to keep ourselves check in uh personally and in terms of uh our our work together so we have regular chickens um one ones and regular also uh group of chickens so that keeps us like with a space a container for those conversations we have that container so something is happening we we know we're going to see each other you know in next week or something and I can bring that um I think obviously also that needs a very [Music] um a construction of trust uh continuous construction of trust uh among members that I think that's that's very important uh that they all feel like this is happening for a reason that we understand that we feel like we um that um if if I need some training or capacitation something I can ask and it's it's well welcome it's like of course uh professional development we all want to be on board and we would want to everyone to feel that when they're making decisions they are making decisions informed and they really understand what they're doing um again it's like when you share the care of the baby it's like you you want everyone to have every every tool every resource that they need to do it and so that you're comfortable working and not you know um worrying about what's going on with your baby so I think that that's yeah great thank you D to De so um we have one meeting a month for two hours is generally what we schedule for a board meeting um so that time is very precious um and we need to fit um quite a bit of quite a bit into that two hours so it needs to be really meaningful um so we have a pretty standard agenda of things that we run through um and we the work that needs to be done um is other meetings it's committee meetings that's you know we kind of flush down things to those committees um because that's where the work needs to get done that's where the research that's where the conversations need to happen committee brings a a recommendation to the board there's some discussion if there needs to be an for a vote um so that's one of the ways that we you know make the most out of board members time is the the history the work has already been done in the due diligence to bring um whatever needs to come for a vote uh to the board so yeah and it definitely came up on the alignment call that you've really sort of beefed up that committee structure as very intentionally to like have Downstream effects on your board meetings well it's interesting because we've always had committees um they just weren't really alive uh Co kind of put some of that to rest and so we've always had committees that do work um but now with more intention more intention we're kind of pushing stuff down so that work can get done and then brought back so that's great thanks Matt yeah so our full board and executive T staff meet uh once every two months our our primary challenge in those meetings is you know with worker owner ERS and our executive staff in in the room we often times default to that sort of operating board thinking with your employee hat on right not your board hat on of of thinking about the pecuniary interests of all of our stakeholders um that happens all the darn time and and I think the the primary thing we found as as being helpful is you know first as as already been mentioned having a well-crafted agenda a memo that addresses all of those topics with information so that we don't have to have those questions during the board me itself and trying to build consensus outside the meeting now uh unlike Deb we have a very hard time with uh getting our committees to meet on a regular basis and I'm inspired to resurrect some of those as we're talking here um the other piece is tone setting at the beginning of the meeting we we named that opportunity cost we've been talking about these meetings are expensive we're not doing the work that's keep driving revenue for a business we're taking the time of our external board members they're extremely valuable and just trying to set that intention very clearly um and it comes down to even something as simple as we start the meeting right on time and we try to end it right on time and and setting that expectation this is valuable and we're going to respect everyone's time and we're going to operate in professional manner um those those are just a couple things we've been trying to do but yeah the the operational board struggle is real at n right thanks so much Matt all right uh next slide please we're going to quickly talk a bit about outside directors this is an a um a stat that I was surprised by so because the question of whether non-members should be allowed to serve on a co-ops board can be contentious um some argue that outside directors sort of are anical to The Cooperative model others would argue that they're essential um forh having sort of the right mix of people to govern effectively um also decisions about outside directors might be subject to statutory limitations so until a few years ago in Wisconsin you couldn't have an outside director as a um on your board so um but interestingly nearly a third of worker co-ops allow outside directors compared to 70% 177% of cougary respondents overall so um Matt you're going to get the question here um because Namaste is the only one that has um outside directors you actually have a fairly interesting board structure that includes them can you um explain the structure and explain why Namaste chose this structure for the board um and sort of both the upsides and downsides what value do these Outsiders outside directors bring to the board and what challenges have you experienced with that structure it's a great question yeah so our our board is composed of four internal board members who are worker owners and then three external board members um we find a tremendous value in bringing those folks on on board because they typically have you we're searching folks that have really strong business Acumen you know myself as a um you know people manager and kind of strategic planning within my little box I don't necessarily have that that really quality view at the that higher elevation um as far as you know primary challenges there I I think to the point of operational board piece is effectively leveraging those man those members during the the meeting and making sure they have an opportunity to engage in a meaningful Manner and you know I think just just making sure when those folks are kind of calling uh our our executive team to account making sure those folks have sort of the emotional resilience of um taking that feedback as as perhaps our worker owners don't don't always have that same piece so yeah ton of value um I and frankly the tensions aren't that great I I've been thrilled to have those folks on board okay great so really quickly because we're we've got one more slide and um but you know Deb and Danny I know you don't have have outside directors um but there are a lot of ways to bring in outside expertise without putting someone on your board um so quickly are there any um specific ways that you have leveraged outside expertise to support your board that you think um you'd like to mention yeah so um we uh yourself uh this is not a setup Center for Cooperative um you know the USDA um you know Margaret bow yourself other people the a group uh Katrina and that whole group that's over there um you know I I feel very confident that if if we have a question that needs to be answered somebody can answer that even better than you know possibly recruiting somebody to sit on our board um because that technical assistance that's available is uh Broad and helpful so yeah I think one of the things as new members come on to that you can set that one can set an example is you don't have to know everything that's not in the job description of being on the board knowing everything but it's really you need to know who to ask and be willing to ask when you don't know something um and that's where the sort of broader ecosystem of support can can come into play Danny something you'd like to share um in terms of outside support yeah we we rely on our or on the ecosystem and the Network that we've been uh we've been in we've been in working cooperatives ecosystems I would say me and Martina which is another of the members for 10 years already um the three of us the three members took by I mean we didn't know each other um well me we we knew each other but the other member didn't know each other and and we all with the three of us took the next economy MBA with lift economy so you have a chance to go back to them and actually have this you know hours of ta that that you know if you have an issue um we also are very connected with the co clinic in the US Federation of working cooperatives and we always you know knocking the door it's like oh we're going through this you have template do you you know we we talked I think our relationships have been our steg relationships through this year have been are very strong and we can I I I think we can always like feel confident of knocking doors and and we exchange also like if you need this I can give you that and you know uh whatever works but it's being part of the ecosystem I think already is a it's a it's a container you can reach out yes great thank you all right this last slide will be a good segue into one of the questions it was already asked by the audience so um we've talked a lot about or a bit about certain structures and processes so far so let's turn for a moment to board culture which I think we can all agree is just as important if not um more important than some of those other things um so but culture is a really hard thing to assess with a survey so we tried to get at it through several attitudinal questions two of which you see up on the screen here um those follow-up interviews we did also really fill in a lot around the sort of culture questions um social dynamics how well does the board uh build social interpersonal dynamics that support its governance Effectiveness and then how well do board discussions allow for healthy descent um and um quite a large number of worker co-ops are quite confident um and it's higher than of all all cougar participants so the last question and this gets it I'll just mention the question that's in the Q&A U Matt because it was for you so you have this um top of mind um that you know Matt you shared that uh you encourage controversial debates um in his practice for team connection and Cooperative governance but how do you support workers relationships and connectivity so team cohesion when these debates get heated so keep that in mind Matt that that question came in um and the broader question is like what have your cooperatives done to build healthy interpersonal dynamics that support productive conflict and strong relationship so let's start with you Matt since that question came in and then I'd like to hear um from Deb and then Danny please yeah absolutely I I think one thing you can do in advance of those meetings is is you know most of us know folks that have sort of that uh de facto power within an organization regardless of their their formal role and I think talking to those folks in advance of something like this and and at least trying to address those concerns in real time and name them can kind of help preempt some of that that controversial uh discourse there and then just setting expectations at the beginning of the meeting you know hey let's let's own the fact that speaking up in this setting is it's it's very vulnerable and you know recognizing that that person deserves your respect even if you disagree um and you know I think just as a presenter recognizing that you need to build emotional resiliency uh as a as a presenter and a facilitator because you're always going to take those pot shots and you just have to you know hey just just kind of deal with that um you know we we also try to hold space after that conversation to have follow-up discussions to to like get the right people together and try to uncover some of those things and really again the most important thing is modeling healthy discourse making sure the people in the organization that have that sort of de facto power are all aligned in how we talk to one another that that really is the most important things people see how to communicate great thanks Matt D well uh seeing as how we've just recently started to really ramp up these committees over the last year or so um being see been seeing some of that passion and some of that um you know deepr rooted beliefs in certain things and um you know I think sometimes we just all need to take a step back and and think about the others perspective um I don't know that we have a formal way but I did come up with some uh committee guidelines uh to follow a couple months ago um that each committee could read through and um that's helped a little bit um but I I don't know that we've completely answered that question so or that issue so yeah well do you think so um just even the member meetings that you had um that you mentioned earlier these quarterly member meetings sort of building some of that glue not just within the board but across the organization um and and make for making space for some fun as well um really helpful absolutely and you know back in the beginning when there was a question on and I didn't say it um about the engagement is one of the things that's really helped us with engagement is the social aspect of things um you know we've got a we've got a really energetic uh uh recruiter who uh is part of events and there we have an awesome events committee uh that has really been putting a lot of effort into wonderful events in the community and that just kind of brings people together on a whole another different level so um I'm I'm really happy we've seen more more engagement more participation and it does make some of those conversations on the other side a little bit easier absolutely yeah thanks D Danny totally agree with Deb and and also Matt um I think I I I don't I will not go into details because of of time also but I think that we we didn't expect for example for us we were three at the beginning we didn't expect that we would have like a big conflict because it was like you know we're all in this we're it's hard as startups are always hard right and but that happened and we and we went through a really hard um uh time a really rough time and we we lost one of the members um last year so I think after that um UHA my my partner she advocated advocated for herself in getting into this um this conflict resolution kind of structure so we always have we we have always had like our check-ins regular check-ins 101 a groupal um uh group checkins um sorry I just invented a word um group checkins so we're always checking on each other we we are in different uh cities so um well states that like um Anna Martinez in Philadelphia or Adrian is in Boston um massachusett I'm here in California so every time that we have the opportunity because of a client or because of a conference or because of two be together we just uh take the opportunity to be together so we stay more days and we have a retreat together we go over things that we need to go if it is strategy or if it is sales or if it is whatever we need to go through and and and have the opportunity to be together have dinners together right uh I think that that's very rich uh for us because we are we are totally aart we see each other online all the time but we don't see each other in person um so that and I think that um uh yeah having a process I think that um I would say the takeaways from what happened is like um uh even though I mean we thought I mean we had a lot of you know resources ourselves to deal with it uh I think that was a mistake I mean we should have like reach out to someone from outside but in you know earlier and in the conflict um so I think that that was kind of I don't know if a mistake but you know we Tred it was our best I mean we're trying to keep our the the cooperative and keep keep us together so I think that it was like we should have like maybe see that to bring in someone external like a mediator or something but uh before and but I think it's that's also like at the end I think that what happened it was what it needed to happen for for the for the cooperative to uh be able to keep growing and and yeah so I think that yeah I think we have a process now and we have a lot of tools and we get and because we have two of the members are really into conflict resolution and conflict U generative conflict so we have a lot of tools yeah that's great there's a question from Gail Johnson um sometimes members can be part of a click and might look the same um or and um how do you deal sort of guess the question is how do you deal with clicks and maybe conflict and building solidarity across people who may come from different cultures speak different languages have different interests um I'm going to just open that up to anyone who wants to take it well you know so I would say that um our membership as a whole May view a couple of clicks like the office is its own click people in the field of their own click the board Mt nodding vigorously so um but you know I it it's about education um and you know when people sit down um like I share the membership committee so when people come in and sit down with me for the first time we're going to have a discussion and we're and I'm working on education we spend about 30 minutes every meeting on education uh about the bylaws or whatever but it's about everybody has one voice everybody's voice is equal and sitting at this table and in this room um there are no other roles except for Committee Member you know what it what you're doing in the field what you're doing in in your office job or what you're doing anywhere else this everybody has one voice and an equal say um in every committee regardless of physici or or board member or whatever um everybody has an equal voice at that table so thanks D yeah bring donuts uh when folks are loading up vehicles in the morning and say hi to people you don't know I mean that's just like it takes time but and and goodness it's it's difficult but just make sure people know who you are and and yeah learn their name and say hi and it helps helps break that down yeah I would just add that we Embrace diversity we embra and that we you make we make sure that everyone knows that when in in my former Cooperative um yeah that would be like a something that we'll bring in so you're coming from that place oh what is your I don't know and we start you know be being curious like what is the different how do you feel here like being connected with each other as human beings we can all have like differences and have uh we are different and that's that's the precious of it we will be would be crazy that we will all the same type of people but um so I think that embracing in in the way you do social things for example we will uh we will do um end of the year me uh celebrations with everyone bringing their own plate like from their um from their country like the one that they have they wanted to cook like and that would be like a gift for each other right so that we can taste different things and um and get to ask how do you learn this oh my grandma taught me this okay Co you know it's just embracing embracing that that diversity in in the group that's great thank you CHR clamp has asked a great question about HR issues that we absolutely don't have time to talk about in the next two minutes um I wish we did um but there yeah she was asking about sort of pay and sensitive issues and how you handle those but since we only have a couple minutes left um I think this is an interesting one to end on since we sort of started with member engagement um how this is from Paul jel I apologize if I'm saying your nameing correctly um quick quick take on this what are the main motivational factors that your Co-op uses or advertises for people to join the co-op how are you when you're trying to bring a new member in sort of how are you um articulating the the value of becoming a member um I'm sure there are many ways but like what's the first one that comes to mind I think Dividends are a really basic piece you know hey we do profit sharing we all we all sharing our success um and then you know hey you can you can actively craft our future um and and we're transparent you know you're not going to get you're going to know what's going on in the organization if we're having a tough year you're going to know you're not just going to get laid off the next day um when suddenly the VC firm hires the the Axeman come in and lay everyone off so okay those are three thanks Matt DB Danny I think that yeah sorry please you wanna okay [Music] um yeah dividends definitely something that um we but for example we've we've gone through the first three h hard years right and it's uh I think having expectations clear and having everyone informed well informed of what it's doing and I think when you come into into Cooperative even if you're not the founder and you come afterwards it's like you are part of this you you're going to make decisions you have responsibilities and if something happens you you're going to know and and for example I would say if we need to I don't know pay like we have done this um we we are right now doing it we pay ourselves part-time uh but last year we were paying ourselves parttime and working full-time this time this year we decid we're paying halftime but we're going to be working halftime right so all those decisions happen because you're invested and and you're informed and you participate right um the first four years for any two to five years for any business to start is hard and you're going to have to be um adjusting to you know whatever it comes it's just that I think that making sure that we reach out to the right people we have a TA if we need get the Consulting we need like if we don't have money we go and you know we trade uh labor and you know the way I mean that that's when I appreciate so much being part of an ecosystem and not being by ourselves doing this so we can you know consult with another cooperative and say how do you do it do you have a template like I don't know I think that that's awesome awesome thanks all right last word Deb I don't have anything else to add no words all right well now well you um you've already shared a lot of wisdom so um please join me in thanking Danny and de and Matt so much for their time um we are going to wrap things up I would also like to thank the Democracy at work Institute and the US Federation of worker cooperatives again and my colleagues Yenni Abby and Megan um I just want to note one thing there was a question about onboarding resources we do have an onboarding resource um it's not specific to worker co-ops um but we can share it it's sort of like a broader template that we can share in the email we send out um and then I just want to put a plugin for the report that came came out um fairly recently uh there's so much more data in there we really just scratched the surface here of what's in that report um it's the third and final sector specific report that we'll be writing with the 2021 data so thanks so much for being here and again Abby if you could drop that link again in the chat for the log or for the um optin for the 2024 survey we're trying to build that list up um down to the last minute and that survey will be going out um next week so if you're already on on our list um we hope you'll fill it out all right thanks so much everyone um have a great rest of your day Bernie I just wanted to add I think I don't oh you can add my our my email because I just saw that there's a bunch of questions there and yeah and if they they want to they can send it to to my email address okay we can include that in the um in the followup email okay great right thank you so much thank you everyone thank you thank you and mat thanks y'all take care byebye