The precondition for a successful staff profit-sharing scheme is that the participation model should be laid down for the long term and the staff should regularly be given fresh opportunities to invest funds in their own company. In this way, over time, a significant stock of staff capital will build up, which will have demonstrably positive effects on the capital structure of the company.

A well conceived and attractive staff profit-sharing model will afford the company the guarantee that the level of acceptance amongst the staff and the average equity-share total per staff member will be high, and the withdrawal quota after the expiry of the agreed compulsory period will be small. What is crucial for the success of a particular model is that, for the staff, it should be clear and understandable, and that they should feel it is ‘worth it’ to invest in their own company, and that a very attractive yield can be expected from the capital that has been invested. However, even though the return is good for staff, the participation of staff members is also attractive to companies for reasons of cost, since the expenditure incurred by a staff profit-sharing scheme is considerably less than that incurred by alternative forms of financing. Nevertheless, capital from institutional equity capital companies often costs between 10 and 20 % p.a.