Salary Alone Is No Longer Enough: What Does Sharing in a Company’s Value Mean for Employees?
The labour market is changing, both in terms of pay levels—although not as quickly as many would like—and in how people think about what they are being paid for. If the decisions made by a product manager, software developer or other key employee can significantly alter a company’s growth trajectory, a fixed salary or bonus may not always reflect the value they create. These employees may not necessarily want to become entrepreneurs or shareholders, but they do want to share in the results they help create.
This is where shares and stock options come in. In the US technology sector, options have long been a standard part of competing for talent rather than an exclusive perk. Clearer practices have also emerged, including vesting periods, option pool sizes, grant structures and market benchmarks.
In Europe, the same option can have different tax treatment, legal structures and economic value from one country to another. For a long time, Europe lacked a common language for stock options. That makes the European Commission’s 2026 EU Inc. proposal noteworthy: it includes a common, optional employee stock option scheme, EU-ESO, for companies that opt into the EU Inc. framework. The scheme aims to reduce differences between countries, simplify the use of options across borders and proposes that they be taxed when the shares are transferred. Through legislation, Europe is trying to standardise what the talent market has already standardised in the US.
However, the right to acquire shares in the future does not answer the most important question: what is that right actually worth? A 0.5% stake in a company could represent a significant ownership interest or amount to very little. The value depends on the capital base against which the percentage is calculated, how future funding rounds may dilute it, the option exercise price, what happens when an employee leaves, whether accelerated vesting applies if the company is sold, and what value the employee receives at exit.
That is why a lawyer’s role is not limited to drafting an option agreement. They need to consider its entire life cycle—from the first promise made to an employee to a funding round, restructuring or exit. Provisions that seem harmless today can become highly significant as the company grows or as investors join the negotiating table. The plan should account for both an employee’s departure and the sale of the company.
A company cannot offer people a stake in its ownership while keeping them in an information vacuum—failing to share business results, excluding them from important decisions and still expecting them to think like owners.
The same principle applies to law firms. Partnership is based on the idea that, over time, a strong lawyer does more than sell their time: alongside greater responsibility, they gain an economic stake, influence over decisions and the opportunity to help build the organisation. That is why a promise that someone “might become a partner one day” may not be enough. If the path is long, intermediate roles are added and responsibility grows faster than influence or compensation, a strong lawyer will look for opportunities where the prospects are more tangible.
The key question for any business, then, is this: how much of the company’s future value are we truly prepared to share with the people without whom it might never have been created?
