At Svyazi Creative Agency, we distribute 50 percent of our net profit across the entire team every quarter. The equal split is deliberate: Half of the profit remains with the business, and half is shared with the people who helped create it. Each employee’s share depends on their role, level and tenure.
The purpose is to make employees participants in the business rather than people who complete isolated tasks. Part of their income depends on the agency’s overall performance. That connection also changes what leadership must provide. Employees need financial context and enough authority to act on it.
Companies will compete through their employment models
I believe strong professionals increasingly judge employers by the way the company itself is run. I wanted Svyazi to be a professional community where capable people choose to work together. Salary matters, but so do trust, autonomy and the ability to influence meaningful decisions.
Capable, self-directed people are unlikely to be excited by a workplace where every hour is tracked, the day is fixed from nine to six and every decision moves up the hierarchy. That approach may secure compliance, but it rarely produces initiative.
Our standards remain clear. Management defines the expected result, deadline and relevant constraints. Employees plan their work, choose an effective approach and ask for support when it is needed. We look at the quality of the work, delivery against deadlines, client satisfaction and financial impact. Hours worked are not our main measure of contribution.
AI has made the limits of time-based evaluation harder to ignore. Many tasks can now be completed faster. If someone finds a way to produce strong work in a few hours instead of a full day, the shorter process does not make the result less valuable.
Profit sharing requires open books
I have worked in a different system, where business owners were reluctant to reveal financial results. They worried that employees would see a large annual profit figure and assume the company had far more money available than it did. They also did not want employees to expect a share of that profit.
That experience led me to a different principle: People who help create a profit should be able to see how it was earned and receive a share of it.
At Svyazi, our finance department presents revenue, expenses, net profit and the overall state of the business to the team every month, quarter and year. We share the same information whether results are strong or weak.
These reviews show where profit comes from, what affects it and how the team’s day-to-day work is reflected in the company’s financial results. They also put each quarterly payment in context.
Influence needs a process
I have found that when employees see the company’s success as partly their own, they are more likely to take initiative and propose solutions. The company still has to give them a way to act on those ideas.
At Svyazi, employees can propose ideas of different scope. Some concern internal improvements, such as changing a workflow or revising how we evaluate contractors. Others involve larger initiatives, such as testing a new service or launching a corporate training offering.
If we decide to pursue an idea, we treat it like any other project. It needs a plan, deadlines and a clear owner. The person leading it identifies what support they need from colleagues. Some ideas require funding before they can be tested. We keep an internal reserve primarily to protect the company during difficult periods, but a portion can fund those experiments.
What leaders should decide before sharing profits
Before introducing a cash profit-sharing model, leadership should answer three questions. What financial information is the company prepared to share? Which decisions can employees meaningfully influence? How will the company define and evaluate the results each employee is responsible for?
If the answers stop at the payment formula, profit sharing can feel like another bonus that employees cannot predict or influence. It becomes more useful when employees understand how the business works, have room to act on that knowledge and know what result they are responsible for delivering.
