A group of private equity firms including Apollo Global Management and KKR are stepping up to increase employee engagement and ease wealth inequality in one swoop. Anyone looking for talent knows those are no small tasks. Enter Ownership Works, a partnership between 60 pension investors, private capital and corporations and labor advocates.

Sharing proceeds from corporate gains directly with talent is about more than social good: the same tool reputed to align owner and senior manager interests should do the same for a national workforce that is less engaged and more willing to jump ship than ever. The development follows a growing trend of ESG as a recruiting strategy.

Financial sponsors including Leonard Green & Partners, Ares Management, and L Catterton are committing to expanding employee ownership at their portfolio companies. Should the measure succeed on metrics of talent engagement and productivity, it could become a mainstay of corporate life, or at least crown a new class of desirable employers.

And yet, the social impact has grounding in real need. More than a quarter of American workers have no retirement savings even as pay for corporate executives sets new highs.

The coalition has lofty aims. By 2030, a year by which many corporations are reluctant to set their most ambitious emissions targets, the group intends to offer equity to hundreds of thousands of employees to produce $20 billion in wealth for working families.

The current framework leaves signatories room for maneuver. Equity can be offered in an instrument of the employers choice, as long as it is available to workers making under $100,000 per year.

Certainly a big move toward social justice, time will tell whether employees will stay put to enjoy the rewards.

Brandon Zero