GEO Conference 2019

How is participation in your stock purchase program? If the answer is something other than good or great, it might be time to reassess or fine-tune your education initiatives. This session outlined the ways to turbocharge your education, whether you are hoping to increase enrolment in your plan, renew interest in it or inject some newness into your communications campaign. The panel walked through tips on plan design and employee communications that are simple, actionable items you can implement right away to improve the return on your investment and create more employee share ownership.

The Global Equity Insights Survey (GEIS) is a leading global assessment of current market practice and trends in equity compensation across the world. Now in its seventh year running, GEO was pleased to present the GEIS 2019 results, hot off the press! Findings of this year’s study not only addressed the use of equity on a global level as a long-term incentive and broad-based tool, but also looked at important topics such as plan types and design and covered deep insights into the communication and administration of equity plans and the impact of regulatory changes on both. We shared the major survey findings from this year’s study as well as looking at the evolution of findings since the study’s inception. Our expert panel were equipped to share how the study findings over the years should influence your HR and equity compensation strategies today and in the future.

The panel walked through their journey away from Australian shores following the adventures of CSL Limited and Dulux Group as they offered their equity in over 20 locations across Europe, Asia and the Americas. Heads of Remuneration from CSL and Dulux explained the philosophies which underpinned their unique plans and how these have driven expansion across the globe. Exploring two very different plan designs, this session trekked through communication and administration challenges and navigated different measures of success to determine whether this wild adventure was really worth it for CSL, Dulux and their employees!

This session covered an exciting look into measuring the impact of employee share plans on employee engagement. The panel introduced the concepts surrounding employee engagement - from discussing how engagement can be classified to defining and measuring engagement, this session took a deeper dive into what engagement should mean to you and your organisation. Attendees were asked to consider and discuss the role share-based awards play in effective employee engagement and learnt how engagement measures differ for broad-based to discretionary plans, how share plan awards can have a negative impact on engagement, how removing a share plan can affect employee engagement, and how employee equity plans can really unite a business.

With a key strategy of transforming Allianz into a truly digital company, it was vital to the company’s success that all employees operate as ONE Allianz and execute simpler, faster and better for customers. The success of this transformation clearly depended on the commitment of each individual Allianz employee. To help drive the transformation strategy, the Company embraced share ownership as a key tool, deciding to allow all employees to participate in the company’s success - not only as employees, but also as shareholders. Previously, Allianz had offered country-specific share plans in only 22 countries and each country-specific plan had different features. This exciting transformation resulted in the replacement of the existing share plans with ONE truly global plan with harmonised conditions. The successful transition has reduced overall complexity as well as provided equal treatment amongst all employees. Our session covered how this innovative global company successfully used share ownership in support of its larger corporate strategies and transitioned its share plans from limited to all-encompassing!

This interactive session focused on how Novartis transformed its historical approach to equity compliance for mobile employees, a path that culminated in winning a 2018 GEO award! With an unyielding commitment to Novartis’ values, striving for quality and focusing on performance in all aspects of compliance and a seamless associate experience, Novartis moved from an equity compliance process that was transactional to a true life-cycle approach. The panel shared why their approach had to change, how they went about doing so, and the results achieved to-date, enabled through the use of technology.