Our 2025 Engagement Benchmark surfaced a finding every HR leader should note: share price announcements are now the single most effective engagement driver at employee-owned companies, cited by 33% of respondents — up from 21% a year earlier.
But the announcement itself isn't what moves the needle. How you deliver it does. Many companies treat it as just a matter of fact reveal, which is a missed opportunity.
As all of our recent blogs on the research behind employee ownership have highlighted, employees with real insight into the business, and a real voice in it, drive better results. Your share price announcement is the best stage you have each year to practice that philosophy.
The two most important questions to answer with any share price reveal are: 1) how do employees impact the share price, and 2) how does the share price impact employees.
For Question 1: Announce the Why, Not Just the What
A true ownership-mindset announcement walks the company through the story behind the share price — with the honesty and specificity of an investor letter. What levers moved EBITDA? What did the valuation firm weigh? What did we get right, and what did we get wrong?
Instead of "our share price increased 8% this year," try:
"Our margins improved because the ops team renegotiated two key supplier contracts (great job ops team!). That added roughly $1.2M to EBITDA and translated to about $6 of share price. That win was partially offset by a marketing campaign where costs ran 40% over plan for modest pipeline impact — subtracting about $2 of share price. Net-net, operational discipline drove the year."
Now your employee-owners understand three things: how the business actually works, which of their decisions show up in the valuation, and that leadership trusts the ownership culture enough to be transparent about what didn't work. That last point matters. A team that only hears about the wins stays disengaged from the losses — and the losses are where ownership mindset is forged.
The same framework applies in a down year. Be direct about what happened, what it cost in share price, and what's changing. Employee-owners can handle hard news. They can't handle feeling talked at instead of talked to.
For Question 2: Pair the Announcement With a Wealth Calculator and/or Education
Transparency about the business is step one. Making it personal is step two.
As part of your announcement, either 1) share educational resources with employees reminding them about the key wealth building aspects of their ownership, including specifically vesting and compounding, or 2) encourage every employee-owner to use a wealth calculator or walk through a sample one with your employees. The share price announcement tells employees what happened to the company. The educational materials or wealth calculator can tell employees what happened to them.
That pairing is powerful: they've just heard how a supplier renegotiation or a marketing overrun moved the share price, and now they can see how that share price can impact what they earn over the next five, ten, or twenty years. The abstract becomes tangible.
Companies that get this right don't just deliver a number once a year. They reinforce, every twelve months, that this is a business people own, participate in, and benefit from — over a career, not a cycle.
If you’re a Certified EO member, and want help getting the most out of your share price reveal – reach out to your membership so we can help you best leverage our wealth calculator, educational materials on these topics, and best practices.
