Employee share schemes: the case for dual usabilityEmployee share schemes: the case for dual usability

I was once a regular at this really cosy and charming local eatery with great coffee and food. I missed it when I moved away—then a couple of years later, I swung by for lunch and found the doors closed for good. 

I was surprised, but not for long. Staff had often looked stressed, turnover had always been high, and wait times on food had been inconsistent. Behind the scenes, things were chaotic—and I heard from friends in the area that the kitchen’s standards had started to slip. While the food had been good, the whole operation ultimately proved unsustainable. They’d focused on a killer menu without considering the team or the processes behind it.

I’m no restaurateur, but that sounds familiar to me.

Employee share schemes are one of the smartest ways to help  improve engagement and alignment—but to get results, they must effectively serve two user groups with different needs and objectives. To be viable and meaningful, schemes should not only be motivating for employees, but also practical for the administrative teams who implement them. 

A solution that prioritises one group at the expense of the other is a missed opportunity. A purely functional, clunky administrative system will fail to engage employees, while a user-friendly but operationally flawed platform can’t alleviate the administrative burden. True value emerges only when both employees and administrators are served, making the employee share scheme a worthwhile investment.

Any successful employee share scheme needs to look after two core users: the employee and the administrator.

Employees: equity that counts

Companies spend significant time and resources creating share plans to reward and align their people. These are generous strategic investments aimed at cultivating a sense of ownership and connection. But many companies fall at the final—and arguably most important—hurdle: meaningfully communicating the benefit.

Because here’s the thing: it doesn’t matter how valuable the benefit is on paper—if employees don’t understand it, feel it, or believe it, the opportunity is lost.

The return on investment hinges entirely on whether employees truly see the value.

On the employee side, the objective is to maximise the perceived value of the benefit.

That requires:

• A beautifully designed experience that’s intuitive and mobile-friendly.

• Real-time access to share balances, vesting milestones, and potential future value.

• Transparent explanations of how the scheme works and how the employee can benefit.

• Communications that build confidence, not confusion.

When employees see the value, they’re more likely to feel ownership, loyalty, and long-term commitment—delivering the strategic benefits companies are aiming for.

Administrators: efficiency and ease

The cohort that often gets overlooked in conversations about share schemes: the people who administer them.

Behind every well-intentioned equity scheme is a team—usually HR or finance—tasked with making it all work. Without the right tools, that work is often highly manual, time-consuming, and expensive.

This matters. Because the more complex and costly a scheme is to run, the lower the return on investment becomes. You could have the best employee experience in the world—but if it requires hours of back-office effort every time shares are issued, updated, or reported on, it won’t scale.

We’ve spoken to one share registry team who were mailing over a thousand physical letters out to staff for each share offer round. It would take several months for employees to review, sign, and mail back offer letters. The whole process, from sending out offer letters to wrapping up the round, could take up to nine months to complete.

For the administrator, the goal is clear: minimise the cost and effort required to run the scheme.

That requires slick, efficient tooling that:

• Automates workflows like issuing shares, onboarding new employees, and vesting schedules.

• Generates accurate, audit-ready reports at the click of a button.

• Provides clear overviews of scheme uptake, allocation, and trends.

These features reduce operational drag and ensure that share schemes remain sustainable, scalable, and ROI-positive for companies over the long term.

Technology + design = real ROI

Technology can work to reduce the administrative burden while amplifying the employee experience. But the glue that binds it all together is design.

As Hans Hofmann said:

“Design is the intermediary between information and understanding.”

That principle guided us at Sharesies Business to build our equity platform. We would need to push beyond technical solutions to solve communication, workflow, and emotional challenges. We focused on creating an easy experience for companies to manage schemes and for employees to understand and value them. 

This approach drew from our experience developing user-friendly technology for 800,000 retail investors and serving thousands of listed and unlisted companies. As a result, we built a product that enables companies to offer meaningful ownership without overwhelming administrative burdens. We've helped users reduce share round completion times from months to just weeks, and we’ve created a user experience where employees feel like genuine owners, not just recipients of shares.

A true win-win-win

Done right, employee share schemes are a powerful way to create alignment and motivation across a company. The employee benefits. The company benefits. And, over time, shareholders benefit too.

But none of that is guaranteed. The value of the scheme is not just in the shares—it’s in the story, the experience, and the efficiency.

To unlock the full potential, products must serve both users: those who benefit from the scheme, and those who make it possible.

Because when the experience is intuitive, the value is visible, and the admin is effortless—that’s when equity truly delivers. And that really is worth it.