Your question will get lots of different answers, because you've phrased it in an ambiguous way, with no context. This suggests to me, that in your specific case, the answer is no.
For example, "company" could mean private or public. It could be 5 people or 150000 people.
"own" can refer to control, responsibilities, legislation, profit share, product direction, market fit, investment of cash, and more.
"team" might be everyone from the lead who's been there from the beginning, to the receptionist hired last week. Or some subset.
Context matters. The goal of ownership matters. Each context is different so there's no blanket answer. Hence my answer to your (incomplete) answer is no.
I post this reply, not to be a dick, but to point out that your question needs a lot more thought and clarity. From that I infer (perhaps incorrectly) that you are the team-member in this context, not an existing owner.
I think you have a valid, specific, question in there somewhere, but you need to narrow it down a bit. And perhaps also figure out if team ownership will actually solve the problem you are trying to solve.
Ownership can mean many things, including monetary ownership, passive stock, or part ownership in strategic direction. To the latter point, every team I've worked on that had a shared strategic vision was more productive, had higher morale, and was overall a more satisfying experience. I'm not sure anyone can quantify should in terms of compensation, but ownership of purpose and direction seems to fit.
This is the reason I work in education right now. The pay could be way better given my skillset, but the one thing this institution (an art school) gets right is that they let each department decide on their own what direction they want to go in and how they do it.
Of course it is not 100% free and there are some self-correcting forces at play (e.g. students who would complain if you picked meaningless topics each semester), but if I decided the next semester is going to be on something arbitrary like the history of karaoke technology and building RC-cars I could totally do that.
So even if ultimately I end up doing something reasonable that fits the needs of the students, I know that the choice is mine entirely and I don't get the feeling of "this is the boring crap course I have to give each semester". This is worth a lot in terms of satisfaction, especially since there are few people in this instution who would understand what I am even teaching (apart from the students who visited the courses and the IT department)
Exactly. I think people want to be treated like owners more than they want an obtuse legal status of being an owner. In other words, a seat at the table when strategic objectives are being defined is what will make them act like owners, not a RSPA document.
Some companies have this model, others don't. The key is the word "should," it totally depends on what the owners want. One of the nice things about America is that it's very easy to start a company. Intel started when "team" left Fairchild.
Should employees have some equity in the company? Of course. That’s the single biggest driving force behind the growth of the tech sector over the last few decades. It’s pretty hard for employees - especially at startups - to be fully bought in if they are getting a paycheck and nothing else.
Should every tech company be some kind of cooperative? That’s a harder one to answer, but this model hasn’t really been proven in the real world so until that happens it’s safe to say no, that won’t work.
If I have a 1% stake in the company via an option and there are lots of ways you can get screwed out of making any money from it, then I am not going to
act much different to an employee without it. If the founder becomes mega rich, I might if lucky get a paid off apartment in 15 year’s time.
I assume you mean giving employees equity in the company, and early stage employees meaningful amounts. I have always done this and cannot imagine not doing so.
Shares in the company are about control. Founder teams (ie., founder/co-founders) should decide early on about how much control each cofounder is going to retain through their ownership -- this is anyway part of forming the founding team based on the skills and capital they bring to the table.
When it comes to expanding the team with key employees outside of the founding team, giving them equity share is a decision that the founding team needs to make. A policy decision could be x% of the shares will be dedicated to key employees equity participation.
Also, key employees doesn't have to be all employees. You can segment this by role, service duration etc., For eg: an entry level role may not be eligible, but may become eligible after x months of service in the company.
There are opposing philosophies to the above. But most use some form of probation period to make employees eligible for participation.
Edit: Also, typically the equity is granted through options vesting. So, it is part of deferred compensation over a vesting period that runs over several years. It is also tied to differentiated performance-based pay.
I don't think there's a blanket answer to this. In some cases, I could see some measure of employee ownership being a good thing. In others, I could see the opposite.
In my ventures, I've never done that sort of this because the complexity of it is a headache I could do without, and I've not seen a good argument for why it would benefit my companies or employees enough to be worth the cost. But that's very dependent on the particular venture, I think. I could see it penciling out very differently in other situations.
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For example, "company" could mean private or public. It could be 5 people or 150000 people.
"own" can refer to control, responsibilities, legislation, profit share, product direction, market fit, investment of cash, and more.
"team" might be everyone from the lead who's been there from the beginning, to the receptionist hired last week. Or some subset.
Context matters. The goal of ownership matters. Each context is different so there's no blanket answer. Hence my answer to your (incomplete) answer is no.
I post this reply, not to be a dick, but to point out that your question needs a lot more thought and clarity. From that I infer (perhaps incorrectly) that you are the team-member in this context, not an existing owner.
I think you have a valid, specific, question in there somewhere, but you need to narrow it down a bit. And perhaps also figure out if team ownership will actually solve the problem you are trying to solve.
Of course it is not 100% free and there are some self-correcting forces at play (e.g. students who would complain if you picked meaningless topics each semester), but if I decided the next semester is going to be on something arbitrary like the history of karaoke technology and building RC-cars I could totally do that.
So even if ultimately I end up doing something reasonable that fits the needs of the students, I know that the choice is mine entirely and I don't get the feeling of "this is the boring crap course I have to give each semester". This is worth a lot in terms of satisfaction, especially since there are few people in this instution who would understand what I am even teaching (apart from the students who visited the courses and the IT department)
Should employees have some equity in the company? Of course. That’s the single biggest driving force behind the growth of the tech sector over the last few decades. It’s pretty hard for employees - especially at startups - to be fully bought in if they are getting a paycheck and nothing else.
Should every tech company be some kind of cooperative? That’s a harder one to answer, but this model hasn’t really been proven in the real world so until that happens it’s safe to say no, that won’t work.
Deleted Comment
When it comes to expanding the team with key employees outside of the founding team, giving them equity share is a decision that the founding team needs to make. A policy decision could be x% of the shares will be dedicated to key employees equity participation.
Also, key employees doesn't have to be all employees. You can segment this by role, service duration etc., For eg: an entry level role may not be eligible, but may become eligible after x months of service in the company.
There are opposing philosophies to the above. But most use some form of probation period to make employees eligible for participation.
Edit: Also, typically the equity is granted through options vesting. So, it is part of deferred compensation over a vesting period that runs over several years. It is also tied to differentiated performance-based pay.
In my ventures, I've never done that sort of this because the complexity of it is a headache I could do without, and I've not seen a good argument for why it would benefit my companies or employees enough to be worth the cost. But that's very dependent on the particular venture, I think. I could see it penciling out very differently in other situations.
If a team didn’t create it, then why should they own over the team that actually created it?
It here == whole company or any substantial part of it.