Employee Investment Scheme for a 500+ Staff Nigerian Company

The Challenge

A Nigerian FMCG manufacturer with a workforce spread across seven production and distribution sites wanted to launch an employee share investment scheme as part of a broader employee ownership initiative driven by new ownership. The board approved a grade-tiered annual allotment structure — rather than a monthly payroll deduction model — to avoid cash flow complexity across different payroll cycles at different sites.

The primary operational challenge was scale: registering 620 employees at CSCS (most of whom did not have existing CHNs), reconciling eligibility across seven separate HR systems, and delivering a consistent employee communication in both English and Hausa to reach all sites effectively.

The Approach

Shares Saver designed a simplified annual allotment structure with a grade-based allocation formula:

A two-year cliff vesting schedule applied to all grades — no shares vest until the employee completes two full years of continued service from the allotment date. The scheme did not require a payroll deduction from employees — the company funded the full allotment as an employer benefit, recognising it as a retention and engagement expenditure rather than a matched savings plan.

Bulk CSCS Registration

Of the 620 eligible participants, 541 did not have an existing CSCS account (CHN). Shares Saver coordinated a bulk registration process:

• •HR at each site collected NIN, BVN, and bank account details for all eligible staff
• •Shares Saver submitted bulk CSCS registration files for all 541 participants in a single batch
• •CSCS returned CHN assignments within 5 business days — zero rejections due to data quality validation performed before submission
• •79 participants who already had CHNs had their existing accounts linked to the scheme within 48 hours

Outcomes

“Our biggest concern was the CSCS registration for over 500 staff members who had never invested in shares before. Shares Saver handled the entire bulk registration without a single rejection and had everyone live on the first allotment date. That was remarkable given our prior experience with manual processes.”
— Group Company Secretary (anonymised)