‘You get to a point where you start to think about exit strategies,’ says Optimum Coatings sales director Mark Marland as he begins to explain the backstory to how the company’s 74 members of staff became its owners.
Marland and company managing director Paul Bailey could quite easily have formed an exit strategy that saw them walking into the sunset, but as Marland explains, that was not an option: ‘There were too many unknowns over what would happen with staff. What are they left with? Who’s looking out for their interests? Who’s running the show?
‘Our legal team introduced the concept of an employee ownership trust (EOT), which we didn’t know about at the time. We spent a year with the lawyers and advisors learning about how it worked and it very quickly became clear that this was the right thing to do, as it protects the staff, their future and jobs in a community where finding work isn’t easy,’ he says.
Apart from Marland, Bailey and the legal team, none of the staff knew what was going to happen. The deal was completed on March 28, 2023, but Easter meant it was a few more days before the team at Optimum’s Morecambe lab found out.
Under the auspices of an announcement regarding some particularly good financial results, all staff were brought into a meeting room for where the announcement was made. ‘They were shell shocked,’ says Marland. ‘I’ve been in this industry for 40 years next year, and it was the proudest moment of my career when we told them.’
A trust board, which comprises Marland, Bailey, a lawyer and two employee council members to represent the interests of each member of staff, looks after the day-to-day running of the business. New recruits join the trust after six months and should they leave the business, they leave the trust with no transfer of shares.
An ophthalmic laboratory like Optimum, which Marland says is probably now the largest independent in the UK, can only operate if efficiencies are high throughout the business. Marland believes the move to EOT has eked out some additional performance. ‘The staff are the future of the business and because they’re all owners, it’s in their interest to take what we’ve created to the next level,’ he says.
The three-year plan is to grow further with new investment in machinery. The company has recently invested in MEI System glazing equipment, a new hard coat machine and new AR coating machinery.
Going forward, strategy around the purchase of this type of machinery will have input from staff and then be decided by the trust’s board, but Marland says orders for the latest round of upgrades were placed before the EOT process was started.
Power to the people
Coatings manager Sharon Eals has worked for the company for nearly 18 years, so she has seen a massive shift in how the company operates and its culture. After initially joining with the intention of staying for a year before university, Eals became quite fond of the place and earning a salary.
She says that while the company has long been a good place to work, the arrival of Marland and Bailey in 2013 and 2011, respectively, was the catalyst for a significant change in atmosphere, with a lot more time being invested in people.
Eals is also a member of the employee council. Despite the newness of being part of an EOT, she says staff have showed significant engagement from day one. ‘It’s exciting just to hear people’s feedback and hear their ideas because they know that they now have a voice.
‘If you think of it on the most basic level, it’s the idea of knowing your decision can have ramifications throughout your own company. That might all sound a little bit heavy, but it’s not like that. It’s a case of we all share it together and what you’re working towards is something that you can have,’ she says.
Commercial manager Kate Child joined the company three-and-a-half years ago, and part of her job is to look after staff benefits, welfare and training. ‘I think that we always had a pretty good culture when I joined, but the EOT just really cements what was already in place,’ she says.
Child adds that the EOT employee council has also inspired staff to undertake more training that will aid their careers. There are now more staff training sessions on different parts of the business, which allows for the creation of greater skillsets as well as additional capacity, should business need it.
