Employees at Halifax are set to receive share options worth
20 per cent of their annual salaries.
The bank last week bought out the ailing pensions company
Equitable Life and will put the options scheme to its annual general meeting in
May.
Shares will go to all employees below executive level and
will be paid out over a three-year period.
Halifax, which changed from being a bank to a building
society four years ago, employs more than 30,000 staff across the UK alone.
The scheme will allow Halifax employees to sell the shares
off after three years tax free.
Rob Cooper, benefits expert at Bacon and Woodrow, said, “These
schemes can help keep employees within the company because they tend to last
for five years.”
Cooper said 254 companies in total had applied for all-employee share schemes,
which have been introduced by the Chancellor Gordon Brown.
Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance
Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday
By Richard Staines