This article was originally published in 2024 and was last updated June 18, 2025.
- Tension: People crave more meaning and agency at work—but don’t believe ownership is truly on the table.
- Noise: Employee ownership is often dismissed as a PR stunt or confused with profit-sharing gimmicks.
- Direct Message: When done with care and clarity, employee ownership isn’t just a structure—it’s a cultural shift that rewires how work feels, flows, and fulfills.
Read more about our approach → The Direct Message Methodology
When Babel PR first announced its transition to an employee-owned model in 2024, the headlines were quiet. A midsize UK-based communications agency pivoting its corporate structure doesn’t normally spark a media storm.
But within the PR and marketing world—especially among younger professionals exhausted by toxic agency churn—the move landed differently.
Babel wasn’t just restructuring for tax purposes. They were rewriting the script on who gets to shape the company’s future.
One year later, their decision looks less like an anomaly and more like a quiet blueprint.
In a landscape shaped by burnout, trust erosion, and demands for purpose at work, Babel’s shift speaks to a deeper reckoning: people want to stop renting their labor and start co-authoring their workplace.
And they’re willing to take on the risk if the reward is dignity.
What employee ownership actually is—and what it isn’t
Employee ownership isn’t one-size-fits-all. Babel PR used an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT), a UK-specific model popularized after the 2014 Finance Act that allows business owners to sell a controlling interest (typically 51% or more) to a trust that operates on behalf of employees.
In this setup:
- Employees don’t buy shares individually;
- The company is held “in trust” for them;
- Leadership typically remains stable, but decision-making broadens;
- Profits can be distributed tax-free (up to a limit);
- There’s a fiduciary obligation to protect employee interests.
It’s worth distinguishing this from stock options or share incentive plans. An EOT isn’t a financial perk—it’s a structural redefinition of ownership.
By mid-2025, Babel reports increased retention, improved internal satisfaction scores, and notably stronger client relationships—likely a reflection of employees who feel empowered to act with ownership because they actually have it.
The deeper tension: labor isn’t just tired—it’s disillusioned
The story here isn’t just about Babel. It’s about the shifting emotional contract between employees and employers.
According to a survey in 2025 by Deloitte, Gen Z and Millennial workers globally said they don’t trust their employer to prioritize their well-being over profits.
This isn’t cynicism—it’s lived experience.
Mass layoffs framed as “strategic pivots.” ESG rhetoric followed by union-busting. Performance reviews that feel more like compliance theater than growth conversations.
Against this backdrop, employee ownership offers a radically different frame: What if your work isn’t extractive? What if you’re not disposable? What if the future of the business is something you actually shape?
This is the hidden tension Babel’s move surfaces: we don’t just want better pay or more vacation.
We want to believe the hours we pour into our jobs build something we’re part of—not just something we’re paid by.
What gets in the way: the myth of “ownership theater”
Here’s where things get murky. Many organizations nod to the idea of ownership while refusing to share any actual power.
Equity becomes a recruiting line. “Founder’s mindset” is used to coax unpaid overtime. Employees are told to “act like owners,” but get no decision-making power, profit participation, or meaningful transparency.
This gap between rhetoric and reality creates what some call “ownership theater”: performative policies that gesture toward empowerment without shifting structural control.
In Babel’s case, the difference was the mechanism. The EOT model created a legal and operational accountability layer—not just vibes.
True employee ownership requires a transfer of both equity and governance—not just emotional labor.
Without that, what companies call ownership is often little more than dressed-up loyalty programs.
The Direct Message
Real employee ownership is not a perk or a PR play—it’s a cultural rewiring that challenges who gets to decide, who gets to benefit, and who gets to belong.
Integrating this insight: ownership is emotional infrastructure
So what should other agencies, startups, or mid-tier firms take away from Babel’s move?
Not that every company should become employee-owned—but that we can’t keep treating ownership as symbolic.
Ownership is emotional infrastructure. It answers deep questions about safety, agency, fairness, and identity at work:
- Can I influence the system I operate in?
- Do I matter beyond my output?
- Is there reciprocity, or just extraction?
These aren’t just HR questions. They shape creative risk-taking, retention, client trust, and cultural resilience.
This isn’t magic—it’s design. And while employee ownership models like Babel’s EOT aren’t universally applicable, the underlying principle is.
Trust and agency scale when ownership is real.
If we want work to feel human again, it can’t just be about better perks. It has to be about better power.
