AO incentive scheme could see bonus of 18 months pay

AO has launched an ambitious incentive scheme to reward its employees for “exceptional performance” as the online retailer continues its rapid growth.

AO said “the proposed value creation plan (VCP) has been designed and developed to support AO’s high growth strategy”.

Running over a five- to seven-year period, the VCP will provide all its 3,000 employees with a 10% share of value created over a hurdle share price of £5.23, representing growth of around 30% per annum.

AO founder and chief executive, John Roberts, commented: “This is the AO way of doing a VCP. The decision to create an opportunity for every AO employee to receive a meaningful reward for the value they create is one that I’m proud to tell my mum about.

“The AO VCP rewards exceptional performance and value creation and we will achieve it through our passion to serve customers brilliantly with a long term lens. AO is now set up to benefit from the accelerated structural shift to online in the UK and Germany and our model is now truly scalable.

“It is a vote of confidence in our people and the future we’re building as well as the embodiment of our One AO model because it rewards the exceptional value that the AO team is capable of creating together.”

Last week, the online homeware and electrical brand reported revenue growth of 15.9% for the year ending 31 March, which helped drive profits up 53.6% to £19.6 million. It has also continued performing strongly during the Covid-19 pandemic as consumers shift online even as physical stores reopen.

In May, Roberts outlined his belief that the coronavirus crisis has accelerated five years of online shopping behaviour changes “into only five weeks”.

This post was originally featured on Talking Retail.