Offering share options to employees internationally

Companies with a global employee footprint face the question of how standardised and uniform to make their employee share option plan. This is not a binary question, but more of a sliding scale. Starting at one end of the scale is a strict one plan fits all approach without any local customisation, which leads into allowing varying degrees of localisation, all the way through to the other extreme of potentially having a separate plan for each country (or group of countries).

While a global approach is usually easier to administer because there is consistency and equal treatment between employees, it can create local compliance issues. Having separate local plans allows a company to meet those local obligations as well as any employee expectations. The trade off is that there are differences in administration and differences in how employees are treated, which can be particularly tricky if the company has a highly mobile workforce.

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