Employee Ownership as a Catalyst for Cultural Transformation

One + All’s award-winning cultural transformation is rooted in a simple but radical shift: putting people first. We spoke to Chairman Donald Moore about how the move to employee ownership not only saved the business but unlocked a model for better business.

Image: One + All marking Climate Crisis Day

When Donald Moore reflects on the journey of One + All, the Stockport-based school-wear manufacturer that’s now a leading example of employee ownership, he doesn’t gloss over the difficult years.

Putting People First

“It was a typical family-owned business with all the wealth going to the family,” he says. “The company has been around for about ninety years, but after the [2008] financial crisis it got into trouble. Partly because the banks were tightening up, but mainly because the family had taken too much money out. 

“There was a period where we couldn’t afford to give people pay increases. We were scrabbling to pay the wage bill every month. I used to get nervous every time someone booked a holiday.”

By 2009, the pressure came to a head. “The main shareholder told me, ‘You’re too caring for people. We need to cut numbers and be absolutely ruthless’. And I said, ‘Okay, but the way forward is that you and the family can’t keep taking what you’ve been taking. No more expense accounts, no fixed dividends, you can only take money when we’ve earned it. We’re going to put people first, starting with the lowest paid’.”

That decision marked the beginning of a major cultural shift, years before employee ownership was even on the table. 

“We started to pay the lower-paid more. The family had private healthcare, so I swapped that for death-in-service cover for everyone. We introduced interest-free loans, because at the time more than half of the working population would have struggled with an unexpected bill of £500. I remember thinking I’d be ashamed if any of my colleagues had to go to a payday lender.”

The impact of these early decisions was immediate, as Donald explains:

“At the time, customer satisfaction was just 43%, employee satisfaction was about 34%, and both were negative on the Net Promoter Score. But when we started looking after people, not only did they feel better, so did customers. Sales and profits went up. We went from making barely anything to £1 million profit in 2013–14.”

Still, the company faced a bigger threat: the risk of being sold. “I couldn’t bear speaking to the shareholders, so we stopped having board meetings. In leadership meetings we talked about the biggest danger, that the company could be sold. The shareholders didn’t really care about us, and there were buyers who wanted to shut the brand down and move it south.”

That’s when Donald began seriously exploring employee ownership. “In early 2015 I said, ‘Offer the family £2.3 million for 60% of the shares. Your brother and two sisters will each get £300,000 tax-free, but you’ve got a week to decide.’ And they said yes. People said becoming employee owned would take eighteen months and cost a fortune, but we did it in five months at a third of the cost.”

Making the Move to EO

One + All became an employee ownership trust in August 2015. Of course, this represented a structural and operational change within the business, but it also provided a valuable cultural reset.

“I said to the leadership team, ‘This is our platform to fulfil our potential. As a team, we’re not good enough, in time we’ll be overtaken by more talented people’. They said, ‘All right then’. So, we brought in stronger people. I was the Manging Director, and I brought in someone ten times better than me. When people join a culture like ours, they’re buying into a purpose, not just coming to do a job. That’s worked out fantastically well.”

But employee ownership doesn’t describe an end point or a destination reached, but rather on ongoing journey. In the case of One + All, it represented a springboard.

“Owners often ask, ‘If I step back, won’t it get worse?’ And I say, no, it’s an opportunity. Most owners think they’re so gifted no one else can do better, but the truth is a lot of employee owned businesses thrive afterwards, as long as you take a sensible view of values and of paying shareholders back.”

That ethos has only deepened. In 2020, the company became a certified B Corp, reflecting its growing environmental and social ambitions. 

“We want to be known as a force for good. We talk to lots of people to inspire them, whether it’s about employee ownership, B Corps, or being a good employer. I think we’ve done more than most businesses to help others and inspire change.”

Going Above & Beyond

Donald himself has become a campaigner on wider workplace issues such as poverty, secure work, and pay. 

“I do a lot of campaigning on the Real Living Wage [currently £12.60 outside of London] and real Living Hours. We won an award for our Living Hours campaign because insecure work is a much bigger problem than low pay. We look after our lower-paid colleagues and we’ve raised awareness, inspiring companies in the B Corp community to think more about poverty.”

For a successful business to be so vocal around these issues hasn’t gone unnoticed, and One + All has continued to gain recognition and accolades for its holistic people-first approach.

“We’ve won so many awards. Sometimes we get asked to apply, like with the Living Hours Champion Award, which we won,” says Donald. “Earlier this year we won an award for race equality partnership. It’s good for morale, but more importantly it gives us a platform to talk about issues and maybe inspire people.”

That platform has reached politics too. “We hosted Justin Madders, who’s responsible for the Employment Rights Bill, and he described us as a ‘fantastic employee owned business’. And Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, has called us the ‘best employer’ in the region.”

Behind all of this lies a conviction that good business starts with fairness. “The business case for looking after the lower-paid is compelling, especially if you’ve got customers,” says Donald. “If you’ve got customers and you’ve got happy people, you’ll do so much better. If you want to be a force for good, you need to do things right. I’ve seen too many companies do it just for the pound notes, and I don’t like it.”

Earlier this year, the business added another award to its rapidly crowding cabinet after scooping ‘Best for Cultural Change (Small)’ at the Greater Manchester Good Employment Awards 2025.

From near collapse after the financial crisis to becoming a thriving, award-winning, employee owned business, One + All’s transformation is a case study in what happens where purpose is put at the heart of a business and where people can truly have a stake and a say.