In a bid to attract and retain top-drawer talent, manufacturing companies are taking a leaf out of the start-up playbook by allocating stock options to employees. The latest JSW Group company to roll out an employee stock programme (ESOP) is JSW Paints.
Earlier in August, JSW Steel and JSW Energy had rolled out its first-ever ESOP scheme for all employees — from workmen to senior management — by allocating 16.6 million shares to 15,000 eligible employees across the steel and energy businesses. Under the programme, employees had to pay the face value of the shares allotted, while the company would pay the difference between the effective stock price and the exercise price. Now, JSW Paints too is allotting stock options to employees across the board, even though it is not a listed company. JSW Paints exited FY21 with revenues of Rs 430 crore and is looking to more than double revenues to Rs 1,000 crore in the current fiscal year. The company could well be on track to achieve this as its monthly sales have crossed the Rs 100-crore mark in October.
