In this episode of Stake & Soul, Barry speaks with Andrew Lane, Chairman and former Managing Director of Union Industries, the Leeds-based manufacturer of high-speed industrial doors that transitioned to an Employee Ownership Trust in 2014. Andrew joined Union in 2014 to lead the transition itself and has just handed over the MD role to Neil after a three-year, deliberately-staged succession, a rare example of an EO business getting both the ownership transition and the leadership transition right.
This episode is an honest tour of what that decade has actually looked like: the fire that destroyed the manufacturing building the year before COVID, the war chest that carried them through both, and the forklift driver called Flocky who is now in the top five shareholders in the company.
What’s covered in this episode:
- The origin of Union Industries: from tarpaulins for lorries in 1972 to the Igidor the patented high-speed freezer door now used in major UK supermarket distribution centres
- Mr and Mrs S, the founders, and why they chose EO over a trade sale they had almost signed after the buyer started using words like “rationalisation” and “integration”
- Andrew’s 200-applicant interview process, the eight-stage stress test, and the moment Mrs S walked into a sales meeting and said “this has gone on quite long enough, I’m offering you the job”
- The engagement approach that got Union through the transition: town halls, small groups of six, and the single most powerful tool – walking the shop floor three or four times a week
- The four pillars of ongoing communication: weekly “Quicklook” financials, bi-monthly “Grapevine” updates, twice-yearly half-day whole-company meetings, and the director in a sequined gold jacket running “Play Your Cards Right” on the year’s numbers
- The 2018 fire that destroyed the entire manufacturing building, and the “war chest” of cash reserves that let the business keep hitting delivery targets from the car park without waiting for insurance payouts
- The governance triangle: a trust board with two employee trustees, two vetted independents and a former owner as chairman, a council that runs the charitable giving and the socials, and Andrew’s rule that none of it should ever become adversarial
- The 30/10 profit split (bonus, dividend), the SIP alongside the trust, and the deliberate decision to keep new shares scarce so they actually feel meaningful
- Flocky the forklift truck driver 30+ years in the business, ex-pitman, and now a top-five shareholder alongside a housekeeper and a sales guy
- The three-year handover to new MD Neil, and Andrew’s honest reflection that hobbies are easy, finding a new sense of purpose is harder
Quickfire highlights
- Employee ownership is: the best business model that has ever been.
- Biggest EO surprise: how good my people were.
- Book recommendation: Who Moved My Cheese? Andrew’s go-to from the one-minute manager series.
- Confessional: a moment of honesty. Andrew’s struggles are people-related, specifically the redundancies where the people affected have done nothing to deserve them. “Still got to be done for the greater good,” he says, “but those ones I struggle with personally.”
Barry and Andrew also discuss why sharing full financials with the whole business has no real downsides once you build the “ambient level of knowledge” of people who read the numbers every week, and Andrew’s central rule of EO leadership: don’t run it as an EO business, run it as a good business – and let EO make everything you already do work better.
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