1 Can a stand-alone employee share ownership plan at Axis Bank help align the interests of employees with those of the organisation? What other HR practices should be in place to support the alignment of interests? Axis Bank is a retail bank with divisions in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Axis has executive and senior executive remuneration packages which include share plans. The CEO has recently come back from a conference keen to introduce a broad-based share purchase plan for all full-time permanent employees of the bank.

Axis Bank has struggled to make employees aware that they are part of a global organisation and the CEO believes that a broad-based scheme in which employees share in the success of the bank will be beneficial in creating a global mindset. Further, the CEO think that an employee share plan will be beneficial in terms of ‘ownership objectives’, as employees will go from two-fold stakeholders (as employees and customers) to three-fold stakeholders (employees, customers and shareholders) in the bank. As owners, the CEO believes that employees will be more engaged such that they are less likely to exit the organisation and more likely to work productively.