Clansman Dynamics design and manufacture heavy-duty manipulators for some of the harshest industrial environments all across the world. Walking through the floor of the factory isn’t too dissimilar to walking through an airport, with machines going to destinations from Italy to Costa Rica.

Despite its massive global reach, Clansman remains firmly rooted in East Kilbride, south of Glasgow – the same place it began in 1994. Much of which can be attributed to their choice to run as an employee-owned business back in 2009. They advocate for ownership that puts their workers and community first rather than distant shareholders.

Ownership is distributed, not concentrated. By giving employees both a stake and a voice in the business they help build, the company narrows inequality and power imbalances, while fostering a culture of shared responsibility. Employee ownership is embedded in daily practice at Clansman – in how decisions are made, how apprentices are trained and how challenges are approached: collectively.

We often hear stories of companies turning to employee ownership at a point of crisis – leaning on the people who know the business best, to save it. However, Clansman differ from this by making the transition at a position of strength; realising that the people that work there, both know the business best and care about it the most so will make better decisions and safeguard the business for the longer term.

The model is far from utopian but instead is basic common-sense; the people that are there day-in-day-out having the biggest say about what happens day-in-day-out. It would be easy to assume that such a model only works in theory, or that shared ownership dilutes decision-making into a longer process. As Sales Director, Derek Muir, told us all the misconceptions that people have about the model are simply not true. Decisions are made with broader input, drawing on diverse expertise from the factory floor to management. Shared perspective leads to better-informed choices, stronger buy-in and faster implementation.

The UK industrial market has a tendency towards an ownership model that allows the market to dictate and control how businesses are run and how they respond to global challenges. Clansman shows that the precarity and distance of private ownership shouldn’t be the norm, both in the respect of wider industry and wider community.

As a model, employee ownership is proven to be more resilient to market shocks, more productive in its workforce and have high reinvestment rooted in the communities they operate in. It also protects core principles central to the co-operative movement: democratic control, fairness and shared prosperity. Employee ownership helps build for the long term and ensures that economic growth benefits the people who make it happen. It puts people first, not in spite of profit or power, but in a fairer model where more people feel the benefit.

Clansman Dynamics is a perfect example of the success of shared ownership. Surrounded by such strong machinery, what leaves the strongest impression is not just the engineering – but the ownership model powering it.