Experiencing the times with unemployment rate hitting its historical lows, above-average fixed salaries are often no longer enough for firms to acquire and motivate the best people on the market. We evidence an increasing demand for motivating the key employees with shares on company’s profits and equity. With this in mind, on 22 November 2018 we organized a conference on employee stock option plans (ESOP) in Hotel Falkensteiner in Bratislava. In addition to discussing our hands-on experience with the main legal and tax implications of issuing employee shares, we have managed to gather extremely strong panelists to our discussion panel, who shared their substantial experience with issuing employee shares in both Slovak and international companies.