Set up employee share schemes

An employee share scheme is one way to give employees a stake in your business and help improve its performance.

As employees normally have to remain with the business to get this benefit, share schemes encourage loyalty helping you to retain valued staff. They act as an incentive or reward and may also help recruitment as the attraction of shares could help you entice top talent.

This guide examines the various share-award and share-option schemes, including HMRC approved share schemes and taxed employee share schemes. This guide will help you choose the best employee share scheme by helping you weigh up the advantages and disadvantages for employers and advantages and disadvantages for staff. It also looks at employer duties when setting up an employee share scheme.

It's a good idea to talk to your legal or financial adviser about the tax and National Insurance implications of different employee share schemes before introducing one to your workplace.