Change is brewing at Phillips.
Phillips Brewing announced that employees who have been with the company for more than three years will be given the opportunity to become owners.
The current owner Matt Phillips will remain active at the company, but the goal is for employees to own a growing stake in the company over the next few years.
“We’ve announced that we’re starting to do an employee ownership program here at the brewery,” Matt said. “That allows staff that have been here for three years as full-time employees to start becoming owners as well which is something that we’ve always really liked the idea of and finally can make happen here.”
He says while this is something the company has considered for awhile, the pandemic put it in a new spotlight.
“COVID really made things clear for us in a lot of ways, and it was really clear how much staff were taking ownership of problem-solving and coming up with how to run the brewery,” Matt said.
“It was a one person show when I started it and and so I was wearing all the hats, but it’s really cool to see the development of the staff, we’re 100 people now, and their ownership of all the different areas.”
When he told the staff, Matt says they were excited at the opportunity.
“Staff are pretty excited,” Matt said. “Of the staff that are three years, I think almost all of them have said that there they’d be interested in becoming an owner and those that aren’t yet at three years, but will be soon are really excited as well. So yeah, we’re getting a really positive response from staff.”
For customers, Matt says not much will change.
“It’s more of what they’ve come to expect of us, you know, the people that are involved in creating fantastic new beers or pushing quality or all those things are still in the same seats, and just empowered to do the job even more,” he said. “Nothing really changes from an outside perspective, but we’re just kind of hoping that it’s really more of what made us who we are.”
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Laura Brougham
