Profit enterprise that is financially solvent

What if you owned a small, “mom and pop” for profit enterprise that is financially solvent, but not healthy enough to be generous?  A rule-of-thumb in business is that one can be asset rich but if they are cash poor, financial issues.

So let’s say you were the owner of this enterprise and let’s say, you have fifty employees, all full time. Let’s also say your firm is listed as a publicly traded corporation and you actually have some stock issued (penny stocks) for the public to purchase. Let’s say that the value of said stock is increasing by 3% each of the last two years. Would the use of an employee stock ownership plan be desirable in this case? What might lessen such a plan’s impact in motivating employees, both short and long term?