Put stock in share perks

This article is brought to you by our sponsor Yorkshire Building Society.

Jill Evans, head of Yorkshire Building Society Share Plan Services, says employers can expect long-term improvement in productivity if they put well-managed, tax-advantageous share plans in place

Best practice is a technique or methodology that, through experience and research, has been proven to reliably lead to a desired result – it’s not surprising then that it breeds good business.

Developing strong, best practices in share plan management isn’t something you initiate once your business has achieved success. Outstanding best practice will help your business get there in the first place.

Organisations all over the world seek to build an employee benefits and reward portfolio that will attract and retain good people who can drive their business forward. This cannot always be achieved by in-house solutions, therefore forging close partnerships with industry specialists is one of the models of best practice that we would recommend. This is likely to be a contributing factor to your success in gaining strong share plan understanding and providing strong internal solutions.

Today millions of employees participate in a variety of share plans and the HM Revenue & Customs Research report 33, prepared by consultancy firm Oxera in August 2007, found a 4.9% long-term improvement in productivity for listed companies that have tax-advantageous share plans.

With over two million participants, sharesave still has a good slice of the action, which is understandable when you consider it has been around for 28 years. The share incentive plan (Sip) now follows closely on its heels. Little has changed in terms of the overall design of these plans, however the service offering has evolved dramatically to meet the increasing demands of corporate governance, companies wishing to offer a comprehensive solution to their employees and in particular the demands of the individual employee themselves receiving the benefit. Increasing employee demand and expectation of technology and the speed of response to queries has sorted the ‘wheat from the chaff’ in terms of providers.

The most successful best practice policies do not stand still, and the need for constant and never ending innovation and the ability to move swiftly to reinvent products and services for all customer interfaces is what makes a company’s share plan successful in the current environment. Listening and having the courage to act will keep you in the front line, half-hearted or under supported ventures never work. Providing solutions that add value to the overall corporate and employee proposition is the way to success.

To support these innovative initiatives and technological solutions you need to be working with a team of internal and external providers with solid financial foundations to build on the service provision year on year.

Professional, enthusiastic, hardworking dynamic people, with strong personal chemistry will help drive forward the collective vision.

All this needs to be underpinned with a sound approach to quality and the service delivery. Key indicators of success are industry awards and accolades, external quality accreditation and the ability to commit to service standards.

Best practice is a way of managing that continuously draws on all available sources of knowledge and experience to deliver a fundamental and sustainable advantage in achieving an organisation’s goal. At Yorkshire Building Society we believe that a constant drive to improve performance is essential for our clients success. Learning and implementing best practice plays a vital role in building on past successes and driving forward the share plan market.

The views and opinions in this article are those of our sponsor, Yorkshire Building Society, and do not necessarily reflect those of www.employeebenefits.co.uk.

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