ESOP 2026 in Slovak Companies

In one “department” at the Highgate Group, we had a long-standing problem with employee turnover.

In addition to problems on our end, the reasons for these departures included contemporary phenomena such as:

🔹 burnout; or
🔹 discomfort caused by the emphasis on performance (there are certainly more comfortable jobs these days)

However, employee turnover represents a significant cost for our company. To combat this, we implemented our “ESOP” program—which we named “Lucky 13″—in the first half of 2024. And it has yielded these three results:

💡In the two years since the program was launched, the rate of resignations initiated by (former) colleagues has dropped significantly (to be fair, I should add that we do not view “The Lucky 13” as a panacea, and we have also implemented other measures):

🔹 2022/2023 – 33%
🔹 2023/2024 – 16%
🔹 2024/2025 – 15%
🔹 2025/2026 – 4%
% represents the ratio of the number of graduates to the number of people in the given period

💡We can invest in high-quality people with potential with less concern, because we have significantly reduced the risk of them leaving as they become more qualified.

💡Although the goal of this program is to give colleagues extra cash rewards, it ultimately saves us money by reducing turnover costs, which would otherwise be higher. And we’re also building up reserves (see our companies’ reserves on Finstat).

For those interested in the details of how this concept works here (from a business, legal, and tax perspective)—and how it can work, in particular, in “dividend-driven” companies—I’ll be discussing this at our ESOP business brunch (link in the comments).

In addition to me, the speakers will include Juraj Hrbatý, CFA, who will discuss the ESOP at Finax SK, and Tomáš Demo from Highgate, who, together with me, will provide the relevant legal and tax context.

Highgate Law & Tax, Highgate Accounting