This article completely omits the question of laws. As far as I know, they get quite convoluted in this regard in some of the countries. I remember that once my father's company got the idea to give out some stock, they found out that doing that legally was pretty hard. What they finally did was selling the stock at what they perceived market value, giving at the same time cash bonus equal to that value. If it's going to be that complicated in your case, you'd better be pretty sure that people are really interested in the stock...