Back in December 2021 we became a 100% Employee Owned business. Now, as we celebrate our third EO day, it feels like a good time to reflect on what we’ve learned, what’s changed, and what’s still to come
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A quick recap: why we did it
In 2016, five of our current directors completed a management buyout, acquiring 75% of the business. The plan was always to build a 10 year exit strategy. When the time came to start exploring options, they quickly realised that none of them felt right – we didn’t want to be swallowed by a larger company, nor did we want to lose our values, our culture, or the people that had helped build and shape our company into what it is today.
The idea of Employee Ownership was raised by a few of our external advisors. We looked into it, dismissed it, and came back to it again. This time it stuck. From day one, it was about legacy – doing the right thing by the people who had been with us through thick and thin. In addition, for those who had joined more recently and were yet to join the team and the futures they could have with an inclusive company.
It was about protecting what we’d built and ensuring the ethos of our business couldn’t be dismantled by future change.
Essential is, and always has been, a business that prides itself on doing things properly. We’ve always believed that if you get the service right for clients and candidates, the rest will follow.
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The lessons we’ve learned
We’ll be the first to say it: we didn’t get everything right in the beginning. We treated Employee Owners like business owners too quickly, expecting everyone to adopt a sense of ownership and commercial thinking overnight. In reality, some people said they hadn’t asked for that level of responsibility. Some struggled to get into the mind-set at all, and ultimately moved on.
We also launched into Employee Ownership during an extremely tough time economically. The war in Ukraine, world financial instability and wider recruitment challenges meant the business was under pressure. As a result, we didn’t manage to embed the culture of EO as well as we could have.
However, we’ve kept going, we’ve listened, we’ve adapted – and it’s paying off. In March 2025, we paid our first substantial profit share of £150,000, which worked out to around £4,400 per person. This seemed to be a key moment for our Employee Owners, who for the first time, felt the financial impact of what we’re trying to achieve through our EO journey.
We trialled sharing financial breakdowns like turnover and cost of sales, but most staff were simply interested in profit – so we simplified it. We’ve now introduced a quarterly profit report and bonus calculator so everyone can easily understand what’s going on and what it means for them.
How EO has shaped our culture
One of the best pieces of advice we received was this: you’ll know EO is working when people start turning lights off as they leave the room. It sounds small, but it’s a symbol of ownership – that moment when people really start to feel it’s their business too.
Part of our journey involved introducing an Employee Council. Some of their achievements have been:
- Three additional days of annual leave for everyone
- An increased on-call bonus
- Improvements to how social events are planned and communicated
- Increased transparency around charitable donations
- Better internal communications overall
Not every idea has gone ahead – for example, we debated introducing an ‘Employee of the Month’ scheme, but felt we couldn’t make it fair. What’s been encouraging is how the council has grown to understand how decisions are made and why not every suggestion is right for the wider business. Their relaying of that information has helped build trust across the company.
It was important for us to highlight that despite most staff being Employee Owners, their ideas still needed to go through the sounding board. The business still needs a designated group of individuals to make decisions on the behalf of everyone – and therefore, suggestions have to be debated.
What’s changed – and what hasn’t
Our staff turnover is now incredibly low. In 2024, just four employees left the business. In the first half of 2025, only two have moved on. A huge 57% of our team have been with us for five years or more & 34% with over 10 years service – a stat we’re incredibly proud of.
In previous years we had around 15 staff per year move on.
Employee Ownership has not just given our employees an annual bonus. It has opened up progression opportunities, strengthened our ethos that ‘everyone has a voice’ and given our team security for when the current Directors decide to move on.
We’ve also had the opportunity to share our experience with others. Since our announcement, we’ve seen many other companies around us make the transition to EO – and we’re proud to have helped inspire that. Our Managing Director was recently invited to speak at an EOA conference about our journey and what we’ve learned so far. We felt assured that we were making good progress from this and the reactions of the crowd.
Every year we take our ‘5 year club’ to the Races.
What’s next?
Looking ahead, our goals are clear:
- To reach financial freedom
- To grow our business sustainably
- To develop a clear succession plan
- To continue paying out meaningful profit shares to all Employee Owners
We’re still learning – and we probably always will be – but we know we’re on the right path.
We didn’t become Employee Owned for headlines or short-term gain. We did it to protect everything we’ve worked hard to build and to give our people a stake in what comes next.
Here’s to the next chapter!
If you’re interested in joining us, check our careers page for our current vacancies.
