Fully Vested

Being fully vested means a person has rights to the full amount of some type of benefit, most commonly employee benefits such as stock options, profit sharing or retirement benefits. Benefits that must be fully vested benefits often accrue to employees each year, but they only become the employee's property according to a vesting schedule. Vesting may occur on a gradual schedule, such as 25 percent per year, or on a "cliff" schedule where 100 percent of benefits vest at a set time, such as four years after the award date.

To be fully vested, an employee must meet a threshold as set by the employer. This most common threshold is employment longevity, with benefits released based on the amount of time the employee has been with the business. While employee-contributed funds to an investment vehicle, such as a 401(k), remain the property of the employee, even if he or she leaves the business, company-contributed funds may not become the employee’s property until a certain amount of time has lapsed.

An employee is considered fully vested when he or she has met any agreed-upon requirements the company has set forth to become the full owner of the associated benefit. For example, when an employee becomes fully vested, he or she becomes the official owner of all of the funds within his or her 401(k), regardless of whether the employee or the employer contributed them.

To institute a vesting schedule, the employee must agree to the conditions set forth. Often, this requirement can be considered a condition of receiving the benefit. If an employee chooses not to agree to the investing schedule, he or she may surrender his or her rights to participate in employer-sponsored retirement benefits until he or she chooses to agree. In those cases, employees may have the option of investing for retirement independently, such as through an individual retirement account.

With vesting schedules, companies seek to retain talent by providing lucrative benefits contingent upon the employees' continued employment at the firm throughout the vesting period. An employee who leaves employment often loses all benefits he or she is not vested in at the time of his or her departure. This type of incentive can be done on such a scale that an employee stands to lose tens of thousands of dollars by switching employers. This strategy can backfire when it promotes the retention of disgruntled employees who may hurt morale and simply do the minimum required until it is possible to collect previously unvested benefits.