The number of employees participating in Asda’s employee share plan has increased 45 percent in five years, the company has announced.
When Asda began its partnership with Computershare in 2010, 26,212 staff members were enrolled in its share plan. At the end of August 2015, that number had increased to 38,100: an increase of 11,888, or 45.35 percent. Computershare – who administers the share plan and helps design communication with staff – said the rise was down to Asda adopting a strategy of ‘total engagement’, with continual, tailored, adaptive and clear communication with employees.
Simon Bell, Senior Manager – Reward at Asda, said: “Fostering employee share ownership is at the very heart of our business. “The advances of share plans are clearer than ever: reduced absence, fewer leavers, increased working hours and more job satisfaction, as well as tax-free saving and investment for our colleagues. The commitment and hard work of colleagues is fundamental to our achievements, and that means looking after them as part of the Asda family, rewarding them in as many ways as possible and encouraging them to feel they have a direct stake in the success of the business.”
Naz Sarkar, Chief Executive Officer of Computershare UK, said: “Asda’s commitment to its share plan is admirable, and a major factor in its continued success is the way in which they communicate with their staff. Over the last five years, they have provided clear, well-designed communications material with a good balance of different, innovative methods to reach their large and varied employee base.
“Their communications come in a simple, user-friendly style, with clear, simple language and strong visuals to make the subject matter easy to understand and readily accessible to every colleague. By providing and publicising a variety of enrolment methods, they were able to ensure that everyone from their diverse workforce was able to sign up with ease.”
Before designing publicity campaigns for the share plans, Asda carried out face-to-face research with a broad section of Asda colleagues, to test their understanding of the company’s share plan and how effective they find existing communication. Asda says that one of the clear messages was that, now their business is diversifying, colleagues have a strong affinity with their part of the company and want to see things that are familiar and relevant to them reflected in their communications material.
Simon Bell said: “The working environments – even down to the clothes that people wear – are very different in our depots or at George House to those in stores. “We needed to ensure that our material was truly representative in order to encourage participation across the board. They also told us that they frequently make decisions based upon endorsement by their peers. That meant drawing on real-life examples and anecdotes from colleagues in each part of the business to better reflect the experience of their peer group. For example in terms of the amounts they were likely to save and their aspirations on maturity.”
Asda provided an online “savings calculator” for staff which helped them to experiment with different contribution levels and see how they affected their potential savings. They also created a dedicated one-stop-multimedia shop for information about the plan on their employee internet site, including an enrolment video, an electronic copy of invitation material, FAQs and an interactive ‘Savings Calculator’. Nevertheless, the diversity of the company’s workforce meant it did not rely on electronic communications alone, and poster and teaser campaigns, such as a Christmas themed postcard sent to home addresses, also helped get the message across. Asda offered its first employee share scheme over 30 years ago. Sam Walton the founder of Walmart – who took over Asda in 1999 – once described his firm’s decision to encourage associates to hold a stake in the company as “the single best thing they ever did.”
