With the advent of the digital age and increasing pressure on companies to demonstrate a measurable commitment to reducing their carbon footprint, it’s no surprise that the paperless share plan is emerging as the latest way to make a difference.

With its obvious environmental benefits, it’s easy to see how offering an online share plan service to your employees could soon become the norm. It’s logical, too: operating online potentially means major savings in both time and money (with the elimination of mailings and packs), and is also more convenient, no matter where your employees are in the world. In turn, going online has given several companies a significant increase in their share plan take up – and all this is on top of the security benefits of eliminating the need to post documents or cheques to share plan members, sometimes internationally. So, how does switching from a paper based plan work in practical terms?

How Logica plc went paperless

Logica plc, one of Europe's leading IT and business services companies, is based in 36 countries and employs over 39,000 people. In 2008, the company decided to take a completely new approach in order to minimise the environmental impact of its share plan delivery, save money and resources and offer all employees the same, exemplary level of service regardless of location. Logica recognised that not only were the annual costs of printing and distributing share plan communications becoming an increasing financial burden, but their technology-based business was lacking innovation in the area of its share plan offerings.

Working in partnership with Computershare, a solution was designed that would eliminate the requirement to dispatch physical documents – a totally paperless solution for all parts of the share plans’ lifecycle.

The key aspects of the solution are:

>    The branded communications portal
The newly designed Logica branded portal offers a consistent communications approach, enabling all employees, wherever they are based, to take advantage of ‘best in class’ processes through an electronic medium.

>    eCommunications
A full suite of eDocuments was designed and translated into Dutch and German, both key corporate languages for Logica. This included invitation material to join the plans, maturity/vesting notifications, email broadcasts and statements. All items are branded consistently as “ShareDirect” to create a company wide share plan identity. 

>    Security
Individual, secure PIN and unique username IDs are emailed to all employees to allow access to the branded portal, online enrolment and ongoing services in a secure environment.

>    Online services
A state of the art web enrolment system caters for the removal of paper-based processes. In addition, instant acknowledgment significantly reduces employee queries, and in turn the resources required to service those queries company wide.

>    Web access to personal share plan portfolios
Web facilities are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, incorporating a range of services, allowing participants to:

>    view their share plan participation

>    perform transaction modelling and valuations

>    check important dates such as exercise periods, invitation and purchase dates associated with either or both SAYE and EEPP

>    view current share price and other important share plan related announcements from the company

>    access personal certificates, statements and contract notes which are always available online.

>    Online trading
All vesting and maturity instructions are given via the web, providing a greater range of choices including online dealing. This gives participants a hassle-free, paperless method of selling shares, from wherever they are based in the world.

Logica successfully met each of their aims of reducing environmental impact, improvement of service to employees and minimising financial waste – and the all new share plan solution was implemented within a timeframe of just four months and switched on seamlessly overnight.