An overview of shared ownership and how it works.

Ownership Works is a nonprofit organization working to expand economic opportunity through shared ownership, giving more employees a financial stake in the success of the companies where they work.

By partnering with companies and investors, Ownership Works helps design and implement broad-based ownership programs that allow all employees across an organization to participate in equity. The goal is to align strong business performance with greater economic opportunity for workers.

Ownership Works believes that when employees share in the value they help create, businesses can perform better and workers can build meaningful financial wealth and savings.

Shared ownership — also known as broad-based employee ownership or broad-based equity compensation — means providing every employee with the opportunity to become an owner who shares in the value they help create at work. Unlike traditional management equity plans (MEPs), these programs extend ownership opportunities across the entire workforce, not just the C-suite.

Under a broad-based plan, employees benefit financially if the company’s value grows and typically receive payouts within five years, tied to events such as a sale. Shared ownership programs are often paired with efforts to strengthen employee engagement, transparency, and financial education so that workers can fully participate in the company’s success.

Ownership Works advances the shared ownership movement by providing hands-on guidance to investors and companies implementing broad-based employee ownership programs. The organization works to build a groundswell of support for shared ownership in all its forms.

Ownership Works’ hands-on guidance to investors and public and private companies falls into three categories:  

• Designing and structuring broad-based equity participation plans, including assessing program fit and feasibility, and modeling the business case.   
• Providing best-in-class culture and business transformation counsel to help companies build and measure an ownership culture where employees feel, think, and act like owners.
• Measuring and building employee financial wellness through complementary programs that support personal financial health, like financial education and employee hardship funds.

To learn more about Ownership Works’ approach, please visit our How We Help page.

Many companies use equity-based compensation to reward senior executives, typically through instruments such as stock options, restricted stock, restricted stock units (RSUs), and stock appreciation rights (SARs). The Ownership Works model builds on these familiar tools by extending equity participation to all employees, including frontline workers who have historically had limited access to ownership. 

When Ownership Works partners with companies and investors to size and structure broad-based equity programs, we help them leverage these types of equity or equity-linked instruments allocated through a company-wide equity pool or individual grants. Employees receive equity participation at no cost and do not invest their own money or give up wages or benefits. Awards are subject to eligibility and vesting requirements and are tied to company performance.

There is no single blueprint for employee ownership — and that is one of the movement’s strengths. Across the economy, companies use a range of approaches to give workers a stake in the businesses they help build, including Ownership Works’ model, retirement plans like Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs), worker cooperatives, and Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs).

Each model reflects different regulatory, financing, governance, and structural considerations. Ownership Works focuses on broad-based equity compensation, an approach that uses tools such as restricted stock units (RSUs) and stock appreciation rights (SARs) to extend ownership beyond executives to employees across the workforce — at no cost to workers. This flexible model can be implemented in a wide range of companies, many of which would not otherwise adopt shared ownership.

Today, most Ownership Works programs are implemented in private equity–backed companies, where governance and ownership structures create a unique opportunity to scale shared ownership and broaden equity participation to include workers who would not have had the chance to reap the benefits of an ownership stake. While Ownership Works focuses primarily on private equity–backed companies today, the organization is currently piloting approaches that can be applied to public and a broader set of privately held companies.

The broader goal is simple: to help more workers gain access to ownership — through many models and many pathways — so that employee ownership becomes the norm rather than the exception.

To learn more about the employee ownership field, please visit our Employee Ownership Models page.

Research and company experience suggest that shared ownership can benefit both businesses and employees.

Companies implementing shared ownership programs often report higher employee engagement, stronger retention, improved productivity, more innovative ideas from across the enterprise, and more.

For employees, shared ownership can provide a meaningful financial stake in company success, opportunities to build savings and wealth, better corporate cultures, and greater alignment with and understanding of the company’s performance.

Ownership Works has supported the launch of over 180 shared ownership programs across sectors and geographies. Together, these programs are expected to generate more than $11 billion in total wealth for approximately 250,000 employees outside the C-suite.

Of that total, $1.3 billion has already been paid out to approximately 41,000 workers, with the remaining $10 billion consisting of projected future payouts via shared ownership programs still underway. This progress means Ownership Works and its partners are already more than halfway toward the goal of generating $20 billion in worker wealth by 2030, and the organization expects to exceed that goal.

• Among the companies with shared ownership programs, there have been 32 liquidity events (exits, dividends, and interim payments), resulting in an average payout of $50,000 for those individual employee-owners. 
• We have income-level data for 18 out of the 32 liquidity events to date. Out of this data set, 71% of employee-owners were low- and moderate-income workers, who received $506 million of wealth shared from this subset of liquidity events. 
• We have racial demographic data for 14 out of the 32 liquidity events to date. Out of this data set, 36% of employee-owners were workers of color, who received $253 million of the wealth shared from this subset of liquidity events. 

For more information, please visit our Impact page.

Employees are not required to invest their own money to participate in shared ownership programs supported by Ownership Works. Equity participation is typically granted by the investor or company, so employees are not required to buy shares, contribute savings, or take payroll deductions.

In some cases, programs are tailored to local contexts or business needs. For example, in certain European markets, employees who purchase shares can access tax incentives. In the United States, one company piloted a program that allowed employees to purchase stock in addition to free grants and provided complementary financial education, creating further potential for wealth-building.

This structure allows employees to benefit from company success without taking on personal financial risk.

Outcomes vary depending on company performance and the structure of the ownership plan.

Ownership Works recommends that companies structure plans to pay employees an average of 6 to 12 months of salary if the company hits its valuation targets, with the potential for more if the company performs above expectations.

Across programs supported by Ownership Works, employees have received meaningful financial payouts, with average exit payments of approximately $50,000 per participating worker (for programs where data is available). Some payouts are smaller, while others can be significantly larger, depending on the company’s performance.

In addition to helping companies implement shared ownership programs, Ownership Works helps companies stand up initiatives that can support employees’ financial wellbeing. These initiatives can help employees better understand and manage their finances through:

• Financial coaching.
• Tools and resources that support saving and financial planning.
• Financial wellbeing supports, such as employee hardship funds.

By combining shared ownership with financial wellbeing resources, employees can build greater long-term financial security and are better positioned to think, feel, and act like owners.

Employees in shared ownership programs receive equity or equity-linked participation tied to the value of the company they work for — not just a bonus.

A bonus is typically a share of annual profits or a fixed payout tied to a single event and is often capped. Equity participation is different: it gives employees a stake in the company’s total value, including at exit, with the potential for uncapped upside as the company grows. Because companies are often sold at a multiple of profits, this means employees can share in that multiplied value.

Bonuses share profits. Equity shares the multiple on those profits, and the upside is not capped. The goal of shared ownership is to ensure employees participate meaningfully in the value they help create as the company grows.

Most employee ownership models do not follow a common blueprint for how employees shape governance or drive culture; most companies have unique approaches to governance and shared ownership.

For Ownership Works, shared ownership programs primarily focus on broad-based financial participation rather than changes to corporate governance. The goal is to give employees across the organization the opportunity to share in the company’s success financially. As part of building an ownership culture, many companies also pair shared ownership programs with efforts to increase transparency, communication, and employee engagement around company performance.

Governance structures vary by company, but the central focus is on enabling employees to participate in the economic value they help create.

We believe all employees — regardless of ownership structure — should have access to equity ownership. 

Private equity-backed companies employ over 20 million workers globally across many industries. By working with private equity firms committed to shared ownership, Ownership Works often introduces the concept of broad-based employee ownership to companies for the first time, thereby expanding equity participation opportunities to hundreds of thousands of employees. These partnerships offer an efficient way to ensure that shared ownership programs reach more businesses and workers.

Private equity ownership typically follows defined investment cycles focused on building company value over time, creating opportunities for operational improvements and business expansion, as well as employee participation in that growth.

Working with private equity-backed companies also offers a chance to scale quickly and reach more workers. Because private equity firms typically hold companies for about five to seven years, shared ownership programs in these companies can allow employees to realize payouts within that timeframe — providing liquidity sooner than in some other ownership models. Defined investment timelines create a clear path to payouts within years, not decades.

Ownership Works’ movement aims to inspire subsequent buyers to also share ownership, which would create multiple ownership and wealth-building opportunities for employees who have received payouts. We have seen a few early examples of this happening.

While our work focuses primarily on private equity–backed companies today, Ownership Works is currently piloting approaches that can be applied to public and a broader set of privately held companies. 

Ownership Works is a nonprofit organization supported by philanthropic contributions. Approximately half of our funding comes from foundations and individuals, and the other half from corporate partners, including our financial services and investor partners.

Funding supports the organization’s programs and operations, enabling us to expand access to ownership opportunities for workers across industries. Our core programs are:

• Networks & Partnerships, to rally support for shared ownership and build a community of implementers, practitioners, and champions.
• Advisory Services, to provide guidance to investors and companies on how to design and implement effective shared ownership programs, as well as launch complementary employee financial wellness programs.
• Data & Insights, to analyze and share the positive social and business impacts of shared ownership.
• Communications, to convey our impact, data, insights, success stories, and lessons learned in an effort to influence the adoption and launch of more shared ownership programs.

Every dollar invested in Ownership Works generates approximately $150 for workers through shared ownership programs — an unprecedented social return on investment.

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