When many people think of coops, they think of consumer coops like REI, where each customer-member owns a tiny share of the company. Or perhaps they think of producer coops, like Ocean Spray, where the contributing cranberry farms own Ocean Spray collectively.
But CoLab Cooperative is a worker-owned cooperative, which means not only do we, the workers, own the entire company, we manage it, too. We don’t have a limited number of owners taking profits, and we don’t have non-worker shareholders telling us how to run the business. We are each, individually, our own bosses.
What this translates to, in terms of serving our clients, is this: You’re not getting a business owner who directs employees to do the work (whether they’re particularly excited about the work or not), you’re getting an entire team of business owners who have chosen specifically to work with you.
Working at CoLab isn’t just a job. If it were, we could all earn more money at a traditional company. What keeps us here is helping our purpose-driven clients achieve their mission. Knowing that our clients are providing net good to society and the planet is what keeps us motivated.
Corporate employees who have no say in where the fruits of their labor go, nor any say in how the work gets accomplished, have little incentive to do their best work, except for fear of unemployment and possibly internal competition for higher wages.
But a business where every worker can say “this is my company,” and it’s literally true? That’s a different dynamic. That is a team of people who share each client’s vision and want to see it realized. That is a real work family with shared responsibility for shared resources, and CoLab clients can feel that commitment.
Knowing that our clients are providing net good to society and the planet is what keeps us motivated.
This way of working is great for our workers-owners. We operate on consensus-based decision making, meaning each person’s voice is equal, heard and respected. We treat our clients exactly the same.
Our worker-owners are free to be their fullest selves at CoLab, and we give ourselves great flexibility in how that is expressed. For the most part, we choose our own hours, and our own work.
This way of working is also great for our clients. Some of us have no problem working weekends or holidays because the “work week” already strikes a great work/life balance. And because CoLab consists of worker-owners on five continents, you have an almost 24/7 team dedicated to bringing your vision to life.
We believe in our clients, and we want them to succeed. And if our clients didn’t care about that, they’d look for a different technology partner. We have decided, collectively, that our clients are going to be strictly beneficial for planet Earth and her inhabitants. We don’t take on clients that harm the environment; exploit their workers, customers and under-represented communities; or support the military industrial complex.
We will always put our best effort into organizations we know will make the world a better place.