Employee Ownership Blog

Many companies issuing equity awards want to know what their industry practices are for "burn rates." Burn rates are the percentage of shares available each year under the company's various individual equity plans.

In a project funded by the Employee Ownership Foundation, the NCEO did an extensive analysis of ESOP companies using data from the U.S. Department of Labor. Unlike prior research, the study carefully compiled data from multiple plans within a single company.

The Department of Labor (DOL) has issued interim regulations for certain service providers to qualified retirement plans that will require additional disclosures to clients (75 Fed. Reg. 41600, July 16).

In the last few years, there has been quite a bit of promotion of something called an "ERSOP" (employee rollover stock ownership plan).

According to a new report prepared by PROXY Governance, Inc., for the Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute, "Higher relative [CEO] pay clearly has not gone hand-in-hand with superior shareholder returns.

The President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board is a commission of notable nongovernmental experts convened to consider ways to spur economic recovery. Paul Volcker chairs the board. One of its mandates is to look at ideas on tax simplification, greater tax compliance, and corporate tax reform.

The 2010 National Association of Stock Plan Professionals/Deloitte Consulting "Trends and Analysis from the 2010 Domestic Stock Plan Design Survey" shows some decline in broad-based stock plans but demonstrates that these plans are still alive and well, with at least 25% of non-exempt employees e

A Kelley Services survey of 134,000 employees worldwide found that 61% of U.S. workers, 65% of Asia-Pacific workers, and 56% of European workers say that profit sharing or ownership would motivate them to perform at a higher level (the survey did not ask about these two separately).

In its annual survey of employees in client companies around the world, Hewitt Associates found the largest drop in employee engagement scores it has ever recorded. The analysis reports a clear link between employee engagement levels and financial performance.

Not surprisingly, the economic difficulties we are facing have resulted in a significant increase in the number of often desperate calls we get from people who say they never got their ESOP distributions or, less often, the equity rights they were promised—or, if they got them, they were not what

The new Cameron government has followed up on its pledge to privatize public services through what the British call "mutuals" (we would call them cooperatives). The first wave of 12 so-called "Pathfinder Mutuals" will act as a pilot for an envisioned much larger program.

The NCEO has cleaned up and packaged data from the U.S. Department of Labor on ESOP companies. The lists are available for all or part of the U.S. and include basic information about the companies, such as names, locations, and plan age.