By Federica Urso

(Reuters). During a period of “Great Resignation” due to pandemics, companies in North America as well as Europe will offer more equity to their employees to keep them motivated.

Global Equity Organization (GEO), an organization that tracks global executive compensation and share plans, reported that 25% of North American firms and 22% from European companies surveyed indicated they planned to make additional share grants as part of long-term incentive programs (LTIs).

This global survey, which included 181 firms from 10 different industries, comes at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is causing more workers to leave their jobs and reconsider their work-life balance.

Sharing profits may have an impact on the wider society, as there are growing worries about inequality in wealth amid a cost of living and energy crisis.

GEO chief executive Danyle A. Anderson said, “By giving condition-linked stock shares to more workers as part an LTI… companies are… supporting potential wealth generation for the longer term et helping to end some workers living paycheck to paycheck.”

Anderson explained that Anderson believes the trend will continue for the foreseeable future and help to create a sustainable, equitable system of compensation.

Out of the 50 companies that were surveyed, only half shared their annual budget for long-term incentives plans. This totaled $6.6 Billion.

Many companies stated that they are paying more attention to the work of their staff and may use this information to increase worker wages.

Respondents to the question whether or not they have electronically monitored employees’ locations in the event of a pandemic were 119. 42% answered that they did, mostly because they wanted to make sure tax compliance as so many people left for the country to be closer to family members.

9 percent of the businesses that tracked workers’ location said they also adjusted their staff salaries accordingly, especially in situations where employees were from other states or countries.

“The message for workers is: by all means temporarily leave the place you work, but don’t necessarily expect to take your original compensation package with you if you are planning to live outside your region or area,” said Sheila Frierson, president employee share plans for North America at Computershare and one of the survey’s sponsors.