To deliver outstanding results for our customers, we need a globally integrated workforce actively engaged as stakeholders around a common purpose.
Global employee ownership is a crucial part of that shared purpose. It encourages the discipline and efficiency that a for-profit structure demands. At the same time, our employee owners—as long-term investors in DAI—focus on long-run results rather than on short-term financial goals. We call our ownership model “inclusive capitalism.”
DAI has always been employee-owned. As the company expanded outside the United States, however, we recognized the need to extend ownership to our global workforce. In 2016, we restructured our organization so that all corporate employees could become shareholders. DAI’s owners now hail from approximately 50 countries. DAI’s model is broad-based—85 percent of employees have opted to buy shares—and no single employee may own more than 10 percent of the equity.
In 2016, the Global Equity Organization, an association dedicated to advancing employee share ownership, presented DAI with its award for Best Use of a Share Plan in a Private Company. “DAI has raised the bar in achieving its corporate objectives and inclusively engaging its workforce as owners,” the evaluators wrote.
In 2017, DAI’s model was recognized with the National Center for Employee Ownership’s Innovations in Employee Ownership Award for its global inclusiveness.