WP_User_Query Search Custom Fields

I am trying to create a custom search form that will return results based on custom profile fields that I have defined on a clients site.

Basically, I have fields such as ‘company_name’, ‘phone’, ‘user_city’ etc and I want to be able to filter my search results by these fields.

I know how to set up WP_User_Query in the most part, it makes sense to me and seems easy. The problem I have is getting the search form to display results from these fields. My search form only returns results for things like username. I can’t even return results based on first name.

Have a look at my code example, I’ve condensed it for the sake of brevity:

function sul_user_listing($atts, $content = null) {
	global $wpdb;

	extract(shortcode_atts(array(
		"role" => '',
		"number" => 3,
		), $atts));

	$role = sanitize_text_field($role);
	$number = sanitize_text_field($number); 

	ob_start();

	$search = (isset($_GET['as'])) ? sanitize_text_field($_GET['as']) : false;

	$page = (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;

	$offset = ($page - 1) * $number;
	// return results based on search term
	if($search) {
	$args = array(
		'role' => '',
		'fields' => 'all_with_meta',
		'search' => '*' . $search . '*',
		'meta_query' => array(
			'key' => 'company_name',
			'value' => '',
		)
	);
	$my_users = new WP_User_Query($args);
	}
	else {
        // default results when searching all users
	$my_users = new WP_User_Query(
		array(
			'role' => '',
			'offset' => $offset,
			'number' => $number,
			'meta_key' => 'company_name',
			'orderby' => 'meta_value',
			'order' => 'ASC'
		));
	}
	$total_authors = $my_users->total_users;

	$total_pages = intval(ceil($total_authors / $number)) + 1;

	$authors = $my_users->get_results();

// function count_user_posts_by_type() // displays post count for CPTs

?>
	<div class="author-search">
		<h2>Search authors by name</h2><!-- Need to search by company name, country, and city -->
		<form method="get" id="sul-searchform" action="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" role="form">
			<label for="as" class="assistive-text">Search</label>
			<input type="text" class="form-control" name="as" id="sul-s" placeholder="Search Members">
			<input type="submit" class="grey-btn" name="submit" id="sul-searchsubmit" value="Search Members">
		</form>
	</div><!-- author-search -->

<?php if(!empty($authors)) { ?>
	<div class="table-responsive">
	<table class="table table-striped">
		<thead class="aio-members-directory">
			<tr>
				<th>Logo</th>
				<th>Company Name</th>
				<th>City</th>
				<th>Country</th>
			</tr>
		</thead>
		<tbody>
	<?php
	foreach($authors as $author) {
		$author_info = get_userdata($author->ID);
		?>
		<tr>
			<td class="member-logo-image">
				<img class="member-profile-img small-image-bg" src="<?php echo $author_info->image; ?>" alt="User image" />
			</td>
			<td>
			<p><a href="<?php echo get_author_posts_url($author->ID); ?>"><?php echo $author_info->company_name; ?></a></p>
			<p><?php echo count_user_posts_by_type($author->ID); ?> posts</p>
			</td>
			<td>
			<p><?php echo $author_info->user_city; ?></p>
			</td>
			<td>
				<?php echo $author_info->user_country; ?>
			</td>
			<?php }  ?>
		</tr>
		</tbody>
	</table><!-- .author-list -->
	</div><!-- . table-responsive -->

I am able to access this meta data, as you can see in my foreach loop I am accessing $author_info->user_city, which is a custom field. I can output that in my results, but if I search for an existing city, such as Bangkok, nothing is returned.

Any help appreciated.