Why employees struggle to understand share plans (and what to do about it)

Employee share plans like Sharesave and SIP are designed to be accessible, rewarding and align your employees with the long-term success of the business. But in practice, many employees don't fully understand how they work. That gap has a direct impact on engagement and participation, and in most cases the plan itself is sound, but the message hasn't landed clearly.

Hesitation looks like disinterest

When employees don't join a share plan, it's easy to assume they're not interested. For some that may be true, but for others the reasons run deeper.

Employees often say things like 'I'll look at it later', 'isn't investing risky?', or simply 'I'm not sure how it works'. These comments all point to the same underlying uncertainty. When people feel unsure, they tend to delay decisions, and with a time-bound invitation window, delay often leads to missing the deadline and a 'maybe next year'.

A related pattern is employees searching for answers themselves – how the plan works, whether they can leave early, whether it's worth it. Those searches tell you the core communication hasn't answered the questions employees actually have.

None of this is because share plans are flawed. They combine a number of moving parts – savings periods, option prices, potential outcomes, tax considerations – all of which need to be understood together to make sense. Even technically accurate, well-written communications don't always translate into understanding, because most rely on written materials that place the burden of piecing it together on the employee. In reality, many won't. Key messages get skimmed, misunderstood or missed entirely, particularly when everything arrives at once during a launch window.

Where video changes the picture

Improving understanding doesn't require simplifying the plan – that's usually not possible. It requires simplifying how it's explained, and that's exactly where video has an edge over written formats.

Video lets you combine visuals, narration and structure to guide someone through a share plan step by step, rather than asking them to interpret and piece it together themselves. Instead of reading about option prices and savings periods, they can see how the plan actually works – what happens at each stage, and what it means for them. Video also has a well-established edge over text for both retention and engagement, particularly for something with as many moving parts as a share plan. For many employees, that's the difference between partial understanding and genuine clarity.

Final thought

We all know share plans offer real value. But if that value isn't clearly understood, it's easy for employees to disengage or delay making a decision. The challenge is making the explanation clear enough that employees can act on it with confidence.

If you're looking at how video could improve understanding of your next Sharesave or SIP launch, see how our templated share plan videos work.

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