Gurgaon firm Eastman Auto and Power offers shares as compensation to staff

A Gurgaon-based private firm said today that it has come up with a novel plan to compensate its hundreds of employees by offering them company shares. The company Eastman Auto and Power Ltd said the plan is a "reward to employees" for their contribution. "It will go a long way in inculcating a sense of ownership among employees and make them partners in the quest to achieve professional excellence," Managing Director Shekhar Singhal said.

He said the company has decided to offer Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) to its staffers. "We have funds and are monetary strong to pay salaries to our employees but the idea is to attract elite talents with ESOP in which full-time employees generally earn share as part of their compensation," Singhal said.

The company works in the fields of energy storage and solar solutions. It said the plan's objective is to achieve organisational excellence through valuable contributions from employees.

As part of the plan, 15 per cent of the total number of employees have been given this scheme. The company plans to roll out the scheme for all employees soon and it has signed an MoU with its employees before they accepted the scheme.

The company's employees have welcomed the initiative. "ESOP is a noble initiative which makes us feel valued and an integral part of the company. It will motivate us to perform even better to achieve excellence," Ashwani Sharma, an employee, said.

"An ESOP is a trust fund that owns the company, in which all full-time employees generally earn shares as part of their compensation," Sharma said. "Startups use ESOPs as a tool to attract top talent as they cannot afford to pay higher salaries initially while companies use ESOPs as a retention tool for top-performing employees," Singhal added.

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In 2014, Indian startups Flipkart, Housing.Com and Snapdeal offered ESOPs to new recruits to attract talent.