Shopify will not rely on external payroll but decided to create its tool, involving people from nearly all Shopify departments.

Under the old industry structure, it was unclear and time-consuming to understand exactly how much you earned,” Shopify said. Maintaining anupdated system in a fast-changing world, Shopify now allows employees to change their allocations a few times a year during allocation windows through an easy interface that shows how much an employee earns with the allocation they’ve selected.

Flex Comp is focused on three key elements:

- Clarity: everything for an individual's compensation is in one place;

- Agency: employees can choose their compensation mix of cash, RSUs, and stock options. Moreover, when employees pick RSUs or options, they receive a 5% bonus on additional equity they choose to take;

- Impact: the compensation system supports career growth. 

The Company also announced that it would add in elements like charitable donations and Shop Cash, thinking that the passage of dollars from the company to merchants to their employees and beyond is one important goal for a better economy.

"Now, our employees can choose exactly how they want to allocate their total reward—saving to buy a house? Take more cash. Early in your career? You might want to take more restricted stock units (RSUs) or options. Just over two years ago, we launched our remote-first, Digital-by-Design way of working. Others followed. Flex Comp was the next logical build for Shopify to continue building a company for people - based on flexibility and choice. We think the world we’re building will incentivise employees for the long term wherever they are”, the company said in a media release.

Other large companies have also adopted similar compensation plans before: streaming giant Netflix, for example, allows its employees to choose annually how much of their salary they receive in cash versus shares. 

This shows that, nowadays, flexibility, in remuneration is considered a valuable tool to retain talented employees.