Agreed that there are some downsides for employees.

I worked at a company that incentivized owning the company's stock. The company was doing fine but it was still controversial among employees because of the risk of correlating your employment and investments -- if the company does poorly then you may lose your job and a large chunk of your investment at the exact same time.

(In practice there also ended up being some jealousy as people who decided to play it safe missed out on some large gains.)