Ensono is set to pay out more than $90 million to employees under a new Associate Equity Appreciation Program.

Officially announced by the company today, it launched the scheme late last summer. Ensono was acquired by global investment firm KKR in June 2021. Since then it says it has been “hyper-focused” on growing its employee base as it expands into new markets worldwide.

Under the Associate Equity Appreciation Program, employees become associates. They can benefit financially from Ensono’s future success through a salary-based stake in the company.

Ensono has 2,800 associates in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Poland and India, comprising software engineers, architects, consultants, strategists and marketers.

Employment Turnover

The firm acknowledges the high rates of turnover in the IT industry has hindered the recruitment of skilled workers. Ensono said its clear that the prioritization of employee well-being and engagement is more important than ever before.

Ensono’s Hannah Birch

“I’m really proud of awarding equity to everybody in our organisation,” said Hannah Birch, Ensono’s European managing director.

“Whether you’re the chief executive officer or you’re the receptionist, or even one of our new apprentices, everybody in the company was awarded equity. That has really changed the mindset to that of owner-operator,” she said. “You’ve got a really different experience because you get that commitment. In a talent war, I don’t want to lose my staff at all. I think it does change people’s behaviour. It gives much more of that customer centric view around how we want to look after our client base.”

For now, Birch says financial incentives such as the Associate Equity Appreciation Program are still “really rare” among organizations. But this is likely to change.

“Look at Gen Z to the baby boomers, the various challenges across society, and the way in which you need to engage the next generation. This will start to become the norm. Ten years from now, that distribution of wealth throughout an organisation will become much more normal. But I think we’re very forward leading in that respect.”

Apprenticeship and Kick-Start Scheme

Birch joined the same day that KKR acquired the company.

“What that bought with it was a round of investment, particularly in the European business,” she said.

One of first things Birch did was invest in an apprenticeship program.

“Everywhere I’ve been, I’ve been a really big supporter of early and career development. I thought that was a big omission for Ensono,” she said. “So we had four apprentices join us in September, in association with Leeds Trinity University.”

Ensono has also signed up to the UK government’s Kickstart Scheme. This initiative aims to create jobs for 16- to 24-year-olds on welfare support or who are at risk of long term unemployment.

“A lot of people during COVID were displaced or gave up their university places and really were a bit nomadic,” said Birch. “Our commitment to them is to train them over a six-month period, give them skills. Hopefully we’ll take a number of those on. But if not, they go back into the workplace with a set of skills they didn’t have previously.”

Ensono frequently ranks high on Channel Futures’ MSP 501.