ProShare Awards 2019

​The 27th annual ​​ProShare Awards took place on Wednesday 4 December at the Hilton London Bankside Hotel. Every year, hundreds of peers and experts in the Plans community come together to celebrate and reward share plan excellence. 

As always, it was a fantastic event and we were pleased to see many of our clients recognised on the night with AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Reckitt Benckiser, Royal Dutch Shell and The Weir Group taking home prestigious ProShare Awards on the night. We are delighted to partner with industry-leading organisations and we look forward to continuing to work together in future. ​

​​​​​Congratulations to our winning clients:

• AstraZeneca - Joint Winner - Most Effective Use of Technology
• ​GlaxoSmithKline - Winner - Best Financial Education Initiative for Employees​​
• Reckitt Benckiser - Winner - Best International Share Plan
• Reckitt Benckiser - Winner - Most Effective Communication (5k-50k employees)
• Royal Dutch ​Shell - Winner - Best Overall Performance in Fostering Employee Share Ownership (>50k employees)​
• The Weir Group - Highly Commended - Best International Share Plan ​

​​​​​Read the judges' comments:

AstraZeneca – Joint Winner – Most Effective Use of Technology

After prolonged debate, the Judges found it impossible to separate two very strong but very different entries from AstraZeneca and Diageo, in this highly competitive category.

For a global company of AstraZeneca’s size, delivering a share plan strategy in 67 countries isn’t necessarily straightforward. Simplification and automation through digital transformation aligns with one of AstraZeneca’s core objectives for 2019. Tying back to this, the company have successfully delivered a new reward project in 2018/19, enhancing its global long-term incentive (LTI) programme to one which has changed the total offering for a significant number of its global employees.

At the same time, the company implemented improvements to the user experience while also automating and simplifying processes. All of this was made possible due to the implementation of technological solutions as part of their share plan strategy.

AstraZeneca implemented the EquatePlus platform in order to enable fractional grant and vesting – important when the company’s share price is (at the time of writing) around £73.00. This also significantly reduced the number of payroll processes and associated risks. They also rolled out the EquateMobile app to 10,000+ participants, giving them the ability to acknowledge grant and sell shares simply and securely through their phone, with FaceID and fingerprint as a key security feature.

The Judges thought AstraZeneca thoroughly deserved to be awarded (alongside Diageo) for harnessing the power of technology to improve, not just the participant experience, but to benefit their payroll teams and do so on a global scale.

GlaxoSmithKline - Winner - Best Financial Education Initiative for Employees​​

GSK’s enhancement and development of their financial education initiative was rooted in employee feedback. Focus groups identified that, whilst employees valued the share plans offered to them, many did not fully understand how these plans could work for them based on their individual circumstances. They also wanted more guidance on how share plans could be harnessed to help them prepare for life events such as saving for a house deposit, children’s education and retirement.

GSK have worked with WEALTH at work to provide financial education to their employees since 2006. Originally, they provided their employees with an end to end service, from providing education to offering guidance and regulated financial advice where necessary.

GSK chose to work with WEALTH at work to enhance and develop their financial education offering, specifically to support their share plans. The Share Plan financial education programme delivers share plan specific information to all employees which is tailored to key life events e.g. buying their first home, preparing for retirement and supporting children through education. Multimedia channels including seminars, webinars and webcasts were employed so that reach and engagement was maximised across a diverse and busy workforce.

The company was also keen to ensure that under-represented employee groups including remote workers, the hard of hearing and those on part time contracts were able to access this programme, and so enhanced their digital offering in order to better support them.

The Judges praised GSK for their inclusive, employee-centric ethos and their comprehensive, eye-catching offering.

Reckitt Benckiser - Winner - Best International Share Plan

RB decided to adapt their launch strategy in order to broaden the access and appeal of their share plans. Key to this were the decisions to a) launch their Global Share Profit Plan (‘GSPP’) annually rather than every three years, b) increase the maximum amount that can be saved from £250 to £500 per month and c) bring the global participants’ experience more in line with the look and feel of that of the UK. Under the plan terms each participant saves a set amount of their net pay each month over a set period of 3 years. At maturity, the participant has the option to buy shares at a 20% discount or take their savings. From a global workforce of 38,000 employees across 60+ countries, there are now over 14,000 plan participants, with an average country take-up rate of 51%. Some countries have particularly impressive take-up: 94% in Costa Rica, 82% in Pakistan, 76% in Israel and 63% in Bangladesh.

RB has operated a range of share plans for at least two decades, and the Judges felt it took bravery to review and admit that some elements of their plans needed to change in order to better serve their workforce.

The Judges also cited RB’s demonstrable commitment to diversity and inclusiveness by their analysis of their participation data: about 40% of participants globally are female, 52% of participants are under 40; and 60% are below manager level.

Reckitt Benckiser - Winner - Most Effective Communication (5k-50k employees)

In relaunching their Global Stock Profit Plan, RB made every effort to be as inclusive as possible – all their materials were supported in 27 languages.

Careful consideration was given to design as well as content, with attention paid to fonts, imagery and layouts which would work for a global audience and keep the plan simple to understand. The project group refocussed and reinforced the GSPP message, and recruited and trained 120 local coordinators. The coordinators also offered country specific insight and advice which will help guide the development of future communications.

Testament to the company’s commitment and effort is the 51% global take-up rate, truly impressive for a contributory share scheme with a UK-listed stock line.

Royal Dutch ​Shell - Winner - Best Overall Performance in Fostering Employee Share Ownership (>50k employees)​

Royal Dutch Shell was formed in 1907. Their business strategy is to strengthen their position as a leading energy company by providing oil and gas and low-carbon energy as the world’s energy system changes. They believe that performing competitively in the evolving energy landscape required highly competent and empowered people working safely together. As a consequence, the company wants its employees to be invested in the success of the company that they have helped to create.

Shell has operated all-employee share ownership on a global scale for more than a decade. Unusually for a contributory share plan, their Global Employee Share Purchase Plan attracts a high overall take-up of 54% across the 46 countries it operates in, with 40,000 participating employees.

The company supports employee share ownership in the longer-term through its vested share account, a share-owning vehicle which is used by 60,000 employees and (unusually) former employees at no cost to them. The Shell VSA holds in the region of 100m shares on their behalf, worth around £2.4bn and around 1% of the company’s issued share capital – a substantial and significant achievement.

The Judges were unanimous in their agreement that Royal Dutch Shell was a clear winner in this most prestigious and demanding of award categories.

The Weir Group - Highly Commended - Best International Share Plan ​

In an exceptionally tough category this year, the Judges wished to highly commend a very strong entry from The Weir Group. The ’Weir ShareBuilder’ is a share plan with global consistency, rather than tax advantages, which aligns with treating all employees equally. In 2018 Weir received approval from its shareholders for a new set of reward principles to support their ‘We Are Weir’ framework. The first phase of the resultant all-employee share plan was launched in May 2019. The company’s principles for the plan were decided upon at the outset, including:

• a commitment to grant free shares in as many locations as possible; that the plan would be simple and practical to administer;
• a desire for employees to connect emotionally with the plan, through true inclusivity;
• and that the plan would act as a platform for employees to build up their share ownership and to use their collective voice to help shape the company’s future.

Their CEO video demonstrates support from the top of the organisation through to the localised global celebration days which were used as an opportunity to hand out award statements.

Employees who joined the plan shared their thoughts on social media: “We are proud to be part of it”….”The benefit of being a committed employee! #sharebuilder”….”Really, really happy to celebrate Weir #sharebuilder”…”It was a very proud moment to become a future shareholder of the company. We are ‘We Are Weir’ in the true sense”.