Beyond the Pickup Rate: What a Good Share Plan Really Looks Like

Most equity plans get judged on one number: how many people signed up. But a pickup rate tells you who enrolled, not whether the plan is working. In this episode, 20-year equity compensation specialist Riccardo Silvestro makes the case that real success is engagement, behaviour change, and a genuine contribution to employees' financial wellbeing. Listen to the episode to hear why understanding beats generosity, and how the smallest communication choices decide whether a plan lands.

What does a good pickup rate actually mean?

Ask most teams how their share plan is doing and you will hear a participation figure. Silvestro pushes past it. "A good pickup rate, I think in an organization, is engagement," he explains. Sign-up is just the surface. What he watches for is activity: people changing their contributions, opening the quarterly results, showing up to the investor call, talking about the plan at all.

The point he keeps returning to is that the end state was never a big enrolment number. "The end state isn't a lot of people joining. The end state should be something more." That something is behaviour change, an ownership mentality, and a plan that genuinely moves the needle on someone's financial wellbeing.

Why a simple plan beats a generous one

Silvestro's sharpest story is about a plan that failed before anyone could judge it. He joined an organisation, opened his onboarding pack, and found the enrolment form for the equity plan wrapped in a booklet.

"The form was accompanied with a 20-page booklet. 20 pages, which was pretty much the whole plan text, and it was way too much information. I pretty much closed the book and I enrolled myself in three minutes," he recalls. He has two decades in equity compensation, and even he did not read it. Take-up across that organisation was very low.

The plan itself may have been excellent. Nobody got far enough to find out. As Silvestro puts it, "You could have the most generous plan out there, but if people don't understand it, they're not gonna sign up. The perceived value is gonna be weak." A generous plan people cannot follow will always lose to a simple one they can.

How do you communicate the "why"?

Getting people to engage starts with the reason the plan exists, not the plan text. Silvestro frames the share plan as one part of the whole employee value proposition, and he is clear that effective communication begins with the audience, not the message.

• Know your audience first: geography, language, and financial literacy all change what "clear" actually means before you write a word.
• Lead with the why: people buy the reason before the mechanics, so speak to what the plan means for them, not the clause structure.
• Pull, don't push: "I am a big fan of a pull strategy versus a push." A short "did you know you're missing out on 2% contribution?" nudge draws people in where a manual pushes them away.
  
  

Meet the informed employee investor

Employees are not starting from zero anymore. Retail investing apps with low or zero-fee trading have made informed shoppers of almost everyone, and Silvestro argues that changes what employers owe their people. When participants see platform fees, brokerage charges, or transfer costs that look nothing like the app on their phone, silence erodes trust.

His advice is to speak to it openly. Understanding the wider investment marketplace, and being transparent about how the plan compares, signals respect for employees who already know their way around a brokerage account. It also helps the ones who do not, who may be signing up with their own savings without fully understanding what they have joined.

What can equity plans learn from pensions?

Silvestro has spent years in the pensions world, and he sees a structural gap. Pensions, especially in North America, carry fiduciary duty, tight governance, and defined engagement requirements. Equity plans rarely do. One borrowed idea stands out: the stewardship report.

"That stewardship report is the administrator presenting the analytics of your membership," he explains. Once a year, the administrator sits down with the plan sponsor and walks through the data: who is engaging, which choices make sense, which do not, and where a targeted education push is needed. Bringing that discipline to equity administration, he argues, would move the conversation well beyond "here is your participation rate."

Diversification, and the line between education and advice

Broad-based plans create a quiet risk. Employees who stay for years can build up a large position in a single stock, their employer's, without ever being nudged to diversify. Silvestro believes employers can help here, as long as they respect one boundary.

"We do not provide advice, but we provide education. That's our golden rule," he says. That means combining equity plan sessions with financial planning ones, grounding people in sound investment principles, and using plan analytics to spot where employees might benefit from a prompt, all without ever telling an individual what to do with their money. Done well, it protects both the employee and the trust the plan depends on.

So what pickup rate should you aim for?

Silvestro does not flinch on the target. "To me, it doesn't stop until it's 100%," he says. Reality means turnover and fluctuation, so sitting at 90 to 95% is strong, but the ambition is that every person is at least reached and given a fair chance to understand the plan.

He also points to a metric that predicts long-term success: how many new hires enrol in their first 30 days. "If you wait and people don't enroll right away, those are the ones that typically don't enroll for one or two years." The moment someone walks in the door is the opening, and a staggered, measured strategy, five metrics tracked from day one with goals set six months out, is how you get to that top number.

To hear the full conversation, listen to the Stock 'N Roll podcast episode. If you're ready to build a share plan your people actually understand and engage with, get in touch with the experts at Optio Incentives today.

"Please note: This podcast content is for informational purposes only and is not intended as professional advice. Always consult qualified legal, tax, and financial advisors for guidance specific to your situation."

Stay tuned for more episodes of  Stock 'N Roll as we continue exploring the world of equity compensation: from theory to practice.