Get Certified
Join Certified Employee-Owned
Some of our members
Why Should Your Company Get Certified?
Help your employee-owners connect to employee ownership by leveraging our a national brand and join a larger movement
Consumers are 35% more likely to buy from a Certified EO company than a competing company that is not certified
Job applicants are 29% more likely to apply to a Certified EO company than companies that are not certified
Much like Fair Trade and Organic certifications, third-party certification creates trust and consistency for employees, consumers, and partners
Benefits of Membership
Brand
- Use the Certified EO mark in marketing, recruitment, and internal communications
- Leverage the combined experience of our members to learn from the best
Best Practices
- Leverage the combined experience of our members to learn from the best
- Members-only webinars facilitate experience sharing
Toolkit
- Messaging examples, sample language, communications templates, and more
- Cutting-edge whitepapers keep you up-to-date on public opinion and trends
1–on–1s
- Custom support to get you ramped-up and develop a plan tailored to your needs
- If you need something we don’t have, we’ll build it for you
Testimonals
As one of the largest ESOP companies in the nation, WinCo Foods believes wholeheartedly in the benefits of employee ownership and we are 100% behind Certified EO and its mission. We hope our participation as a founding member of the organization will not only set an example for other ESOP companies, but also encourage others who are considering becoming employee-owned to follow the example of all the founding members and provide their employees an ownership stake in their company.
Employee ownership is an important part of the Lifetouch story. We talk about it, but how can we show it? Certified EO will help us to spread this part of our story to our customers, partners and communities.
Transparency is a key value of Modern Times, and we're proud to support this effort to make employee-ownership both visible and trustworthy.
The ESOP community has very strong associations but we have yet to create an organization solely focused on marketing to our customers. If we are able to build a nationally recognized brand it will be a major game changer.
Prairie is honored to partner with Certified EO. We share similar goals and seek to educate the market on the benefits of employee ownership. As an employee-owned company ourselves, we are excited to work with Certified EO to help make employee ownership a differentiator for both consumers and employees.
We joined Certified EO to help spread the message that employee ownership provides its members with a significant competitive advantage by making the company about 'Us', not 'Me'.
Franklin Building Supply has been a 100% employee owned company for slightly more than one year. As a relatively young ownership culture, we joined Certified EO to help us accelerate the awareness of our unique and valuable ownership structure to our owners and future owners across the company.
Without a clear certification program for what is and isn't an ‘employee owned’ company, it was easy for companies to mislead the general public. Certified EO has established a definitive process that separates companies who purport to be “employee-owned” from those who truly are, fulfilling a genuine industry need for separating the wheat from the chaff.
Certification Process
Our certification is rigorous yet efficient - it only takes two hours for a company to get certified.
Introduction
Get to know Certified EO and see if you’re a good fit for certification
Questionnaire
Tell us about your ownership program and organizational practices
Follow-ups
Discuss the information you provided and clear up any questions
Review
Receive certification decision and discuss implementation
Certification Standards
Company must be at least 30% owned by an ownership program
Reasonable access to the program must be open to all employees
Ownership in the program cannot be too concentrated
