National electric vehicle (EV) charging network Be.EV started up in 2020, and officially launched in April 2021. It has always placed the concept of employees sharing in its success at the heart of its model, initially by giving early hires an equity stake and more recently through two enterprise management incentive (EMI) schemes.
Adrian Fielden-Gray, co-founder of Be.EV, says: “We wanted everyone to be a part of this, and our success to be their success.”
Be.EV has 29 employees, 15 of which are part of some form of share arrangement but the organisation is currently in the process of launching a further growth share scheme for newer employees, after recent investment from Octopus Energy Generation means it is no longer eligible for an EMI plan.
“At any point when we issue them, anyone who is part of the regime gets enrolled on to it without fail,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if they’re the most junior person or the most senior; everyone gets something.”
In the early days, offering an equity stake helped attract talented individuals who might otherwise not have been attracted to a start-up, says Fielden-Gray.
Now, the aim is to keep hold of talent for a longer period, helping the business get to a point where it may receive investment. “[We] want people to stay until the end of the three- or four-year scheme, rather than leave after one year,” he says.
People can leave during this term and retain the options, although there is provision for bad leavers too.
The share plan also comes up regularly at the recruitment stage, he adds. “We’re hopefully quite an attractive business to work for anyway, as part of the transition to net-zero, but the share scheme is an appealing extra element,” he says. “We have people coming to the end of their probation and asking if they can join the plan. That was the purpose of it.”
