Hard-won lessons in employee ownership: Our journey through challenging times

A reality check

We received anonymous feedback during this period, with one comment that particularly struck home:

"Given the lack of any decision-making power, relevant information prior to the fact, or consideration, should we now return to using the more accurate term employees rather than co-owners?"

For a proudly employee-owned business, this was tough to hear. But it sparked important realisations about what real co-ownership means - both in good times and bad.

We're always learning

Looking back, we can see how our sustained success might have led us to become comfortable and perhaps complacent. When you're consistently beating quarterly targets and delivering substantial profit shares, it's easy to miss signs that things need to change.

The redundancy process, while painful, taught us crucial lessons about transparency and communication. We involved our elected employee trustees from the start, created comprehensive support resources, and maintained open channels for questions - even difficult ones. We learned there's no way to do redundancy "right," but there are ways to do it with integrity and respect.

Rebuilding

While these challenges have tested our employee ownership culture, they've also given us important insights about how to build it back stronger. We've created new ways to amplify employee voice, including our "Talking Points" initiative that ensures organisational challenges are discussed at every level.

We're developing a clear Constitution to make our governance more accessible and transparent. But, most importantly, we're having more honest conversations about what it truly means to be a co-owner - in both good times and challenging ones.

​​We're realistic about where we are in our journey. Our recent employee survey shows we have work to do to rebuild trust and engagement. But we're committed to learning from these experiences and using them to create a more resilient organisation.

We're now focused on rebuilding, not just financially but culturally. We've re-evaluated our market position, reorganised our leadership structure, and set new strategic directions beyond simple growth metrics. While we lost some talented people along the way - both through redundancy and those who chose to move on - those who stayed have a deeper understanding of what employee ownership really means.

Looking ahead

I feel optimistic about our future. Not just because our profit share is recovering, but because we'll emerge as a stronger, more resilient agency. As Olly nicely put it in our talk:

“We're an employee-owned company forged in fire, and we're better for it.”

This might not be the story of employee ownership that people want to hear. But it's perhaps the story that needs to be heard: that true employee ownership isn't just about sharing in the successes, but about facing challenges together and emerging stronger on the other side.

Thanks to the EOA for allowing us to share this instalment of our EO journey and to everyone who came along to hear it.