As labor and capital diverge, workers rarely have the opportunity to own equity in the companies they help build. Yet when implemented effectively, broad-based employee ownership can serve as a long-term value creation strategy: improving retention, strengthening engagement, and aligning employees with shareholder outcomes. Research from The People Factor: How Investing in Employees Pays Off found that companies that commit to and follow through on investing in their workforce are associated with higher ROIC and lower annual turnover. That research examined workforce investments broadly, highlighting the potential value of strengthening the alignment between companies and employees. Despite this potential, broad-based share ownership remains uneven in public markets and is often limited to executives.

Objectives:

• Assess the prevalence of employee ownership practices across global public markets
• Determine under what conditions employee ownership aligns employee and shareholder interests and improves long-term performance
• Understand under what conditions employee ownership is most effective, and what barriers exist to broader adoption

• Measure how activist pressure elsewhere in public markets changes behavior at companies that are never directly targeted, and where within the organization investments are most commonly cut (with a focus on R&D).
• Explore best practice for long-term shareholders, with particular attention to asset owners, to better communicate their positions when indirect pressure arrives.