So the latest big wheeze to get Britain’s businesses firing on all cylinders is to allow employees to trade their employment rights for share options. The thinking is that by having a stake in the business they will have a stronger sense of shared purpose and contribute more to its performance.
Will this idea deliver the motivational win for employee and employer? I’m not sure.
For a start there is the issue of complexity. Putting aside the question of whether the scheme will ever see light of day, as someone who has worked with a range of organisations on schemes which help deliver employee performance, I can see the scheme appealing to few businesses and even fewer employees. With share ownership in the UK at around 15% the idea of share options is likely to be just too exotic for the majority of businesses.
Then there is the issue of communication. It will take a lot of hard work and selling to convince employees this is a worthwhile incentive to adopt. Communicating the benefits of our incentive, reward and benefit schemes is the Achilles heel for most organisations so, combined with the complexity of setting the scheme up, I see another significant barrier.
Perhaps the biggest issue, however, is that this is a form of reward which is built solely around the needs of the employer rather than what will interest or benefit the employee. And so it is way off the place we see so many organisations are going with their reward strategy where the focus is on wellbeing and support for employees and using benefits to help bridge the gap between diminished take-home pay and rising financial commitments.
I don’t contest the principal that benefits and reward should ultimately deliver results for the organisation. What we cannot forget is that this works best when the interests of the employer and the needs of the employee overlap in reward and benefits strategy. That is the best way for organisations to get superior performance from their people and achieve the results they desire.
Andy Philpott is sales and marketing director of Edenred
www.edenred.co.uk