When everyone’s an owner: how employee ownership powers sustainable growth at TensCare

How employee ownership can strengthen culture, succession, and long-term resilience

When Neil Wright joined TensCare nearly 20 years ago, the medical device business was modest, vulnerable, and heavily dependent on a single customer. Today it has an international client base, strong financial performance, and a clear succession pathway. 

The turning point came when Neil took the unusual step of buying the business and then gifted it into an employee ownership trust (EOT). It transformed not only TensCare’s ownership structure, but its culture, resilience, and long-term outlook. 

How the ownership model was designed to be sustainable 

It’s clear from the Sustainable Business Model Canvas taught in Part 1 of the Help to Grow: Management Course, an organisation’s long-term viability depends on its ability to balance value creation, customer needs, internal capabilities, and key partnerships. For Neil, employee ownership became a strategic building block in that model. 

Neil protected the company’s mission — improving quality of life through innovative medical devices — by transferring shares into a trust, ensuring its values continue to be upheld by the people who helped create it. He also wrote in the trust deed that he himself could not be a trustee. 

‘I wanted to be accountable to the trust,’ he explains. ‘The trustees represent the employees, and the board reports to them every quarter. It keeps everyone focused on what’s best for the business, not just what’s best for management.’ 

Trustees are elected by staff every two years, alongside an independent external trustee. This creates a governance structure that is transparent, fair, and inclusive, supporting continuity even as leadership evolves. 

For a small business in a highly regulated sector, that stability matters. It ensures TensCare can continue investing in new products, navigating compliance, and expanding internationally from its base in Surrey. 

Culture below the surface 

TensCare’s success cannot be explained by its structure alone. Much of it comes down to culture. As in any organisation, the culture is determined by the deeper assumptions, values, and behaviours that determine how people work together. 

This is best understood through the Iceberg Model of Culture taught in Part 2 of the Help to Grow: Management Course, which explains that most cultural drivers sit below the waterline, shaping performance even when they’re not explicitly discussed. 

At the surface level, TensCare’s culture looks friendly, energetic, and well connected. The whole team meets every Thursday morning for the ‘five-to-ten’, a ten-minute update on sales progress, targets, and company news. Every fortnight a different department presents what it has been working on, ensuring everyone understands how their work fits into the bigger picture. Personal milestones are also celebrated: passing an NVQ, learning to drive, moving house, even getting a new dog. 

But it’s the deeper layers that make TensCare distinctive. Beneath those visible practices sits a strong belief in fairness, shared contribution, and potential. Neil talks about the ripple effect of improving someone’s quality of life, a philosophy that applies to staff as much as customers. 

He recalls one young employee, Stacey, who joined with low school attainment and lacked basic numeracy. TensCare offered her training and qualifications, and she flourished. 

‘It was one of the best things I’ve ever done,’ Neil says. ‘We try to look beyond CVs and see potential.’ 

At the other end of the spectrum, Charlotte joined with an entry-level bookkeeping qualification. Seventeen years later, she is now the company’s finance director, and, in Neil’s view, a likely future managing director. 

This long-term investment in people reinforces the culture below the waterline: trust, growth, accountability, and genuine care. It also strengthens TensCare’s ability to retain knowledge and talent in a sector where turnover can be high. 

Purpose that drives performance 

TensCare’s value proposition, improving quality of life, shapes not just what it sells, but how it operates. Whether it is pelvic floor devices that help postpartum women regain confidence, or migraine therapies that reduce debilitating pain, the mission is clear and emotionally resonant. 

Employees are motivated by that purpose, not by revenue targets. ‘We never sit in a meeting and just talk about how much money we’re going to make,’ Neil says. ‘We talk about improving quality of life.’ 

This clarity has helped TensCare expand internationally, develop new technologies, and diversify its product range, all while maintaining its identity as a small, purpose-driven, employee-owned business. 

A model other SMEs can learn from 

For many owners approaching succession, employee ownership is barely on the radar. Neil argues it should be. 

‘It offers solutions for a lot of people who don’t have a succession plan,’ he says. ‘It creates resilience, continuity, and a sense of shared purpose.’  

For Neil, the decision to transition to an EOT has paid off. Employees bought in, propelling the business to new heights. But it also alleviated any concerns he had over selling the business as he could confidently pass it on to a culturally and financially invested group over time. This is now more like a long-term investment with agreed milestones and targets, as opposed to a cash grab that can result in the structure and culture of the business, which is often its driving force, being erased.   

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