25% of employees don’t understand SIPs – ProShare

A quarter of employees eligible to join an employer’s share incentive plan (SIP) do not take up the opportunity because they do not understand it, according to research by ProShare. There is a worrying knowledge gap around key plan features amongst members – for example, 25% admit that they did not realise contributions to the SIP are taken from pre-tax pay.

As many as 17% of respondents are not aware that their employer offers a SIP.

Martin Nellist, Client Experience Manager at ProShare, said:

‘We identified some clear differences in awareness, understanding and attitudes toward SIP across the employee demographic and both employers and share plan administrators need to be aware of these when piecing together their communication strategies.’

‘Attitudes to Employee Share Ownership: See it from their perspective’, ProShare, January 2018: http://proshare.libf.ac.uk/docs/default-source/default-document-library/'attitudes-to-employee-share-ownership'.pdf?sfvrsn=0