Empowering Employees: Seattle's Urban Animal Launches Worker Cooperative Model
Coming this month, Seattle’s Urban Animal will become the nation’s first worker cooperative veterinary practice, allowing its 110 employees to share in the governance and profits of the 11 year-old company with more than 50,000 clients. In transitioning to a limited cooperative association (LCA), Urban Animal joins approximately three dozen worker cooperative-based businesses in Washington, yet the first veterinary practice of this kind. In launching the LCA, Founder Cherri Trusheim will gift a portion of the company to seed it, with a goal over time to become a 100 percent employee-owned worker co-op.
The veterinary industry has seen unprecedented corporatization as locally owned, “Mom and Pop,” practices sell to larger corporations and private equity groups. This often detracts from employee culture. Corporatization also diminishes the standard of care by upselling and tying veterinary professionals’ compensation to the amount of products and services they sell. Urban Animal is different and does not pay any employee based on production.
Urban Animal Founder Dr. Cherri Trusheim is committed to the worker co-op model as a solution to give power back to the employees. It ensures the practices remain locally owned and community minded, while providing compassionate and accessible, option-based care.
“The veterinary industry is in the eye of a perfect storm due to factors such as employee burnout and private equity buyouts, which are diminishing the number of qualified veterinary professionals,” said Urban Animal Owner and Veterinarian Cherri Trusheim. “Urban Animal is presenting this groundbreaking solution to set the bar for the industry and beyond.”
The worker cooperative will provide employees a new level of governance within the company, providing access, influence and transparency to the intricacies of operating and growing a business. Urban Animal will continue to operate its three, thriving practices throughout Seattle while inviting employees to take ownership and benefit from the company’s planned growth. In forming the worker cooperative, Urban Animal hopes this unique ownership model attracts professionals across the industry who desire a workplace governed by those who provide veterinary care and not a group of nameless shareholders.
“This model will empower our team to drive the business forward while also making sure that we’re benefitting through fair salaries, learning opportunities, and governance over our work environment,” said Mollyrose Dumm, Client Liaison at Urban Animal. “With nationwide staffing shortages at all levels of veterinary care, a worker co-op model will hopefully attract new staff as people see that we’re a company that takes the employee experience seriously.”
The upcoming shift to a worker cooperative has been in development for more than two years. The worker cooperative will have a functioning group of “early adopters” who will learn the fundamentals from Urban Animal’s cooperative development partner, The Cooperative Way. In turn, this group will become ambassadors to champion the concept to other employees. Trusheim will remain as the CEO and is excited about working closely with worker cooperative to support continual training and mentorship as the new model rolls out. Urban Animal is currently hiring across all practice roles. For more information, please visit www.urbananimalnw.com.
Urban Animal offers option-based veterinary medicine, founded on the belief that care should be accessible to all. Urban Animal offers two distinct approaches which deliver convenience to a diverse population of people and pets. The Capitol Hill and White Center locations provide the flexibility of walk-in services geared toward affordability while the Downtown location converted to an appointment-only model in August 2023. Founded in 2012 by Dr. Cherri Trusheim, Urban Animal is proud to be an LGBTQ, women-owned business. Learn more at www.urbananimalnw.com and @UrbanAnimalNW on Instagram and Facebook.