No the reward isn't that their job still exists, they're providing a loan - either pay interest, pay a bonus, pay a higher hourly rate in the future or provide equity it is simple.
So if they loan the money with interest, will that make it ok?
Lets drill down into that....
Say someone is on £1,000 a month, interest rates are what 0.5%? Let's be charitable and call it 5%, good deal now for the staff, yes?
10% loan of £1,000 = £100, say three months of that until they open again (call this June), that's £300 to loan to the company.
5% APR on £300 say from May to November, 6 months.
That's £4.29 interest, in total. At 10 x the current interest rate (which will likely be negative by then) the difference between this being ok, and not ok is £4.29, apparently?
This is why I said they could have said they will pay back interest, it would have prevented most of the flames for next to zero cost. I bet the owners never even realised it!
What makes it ok/ not ok is the full circumstances (which are not known), and the value of the staff keeping their jobs for a year outweighs the interest by about 2500:1.
To me, and it would be the same if I was in that position, I would see the value of the job, far outweighs any material reward, especially in this climate. It's certainly no worse than unpaid overtime, which gets forced on practically every public sector worker.
I can't see people on that rate wanting equity, not at the value which would have matched pre-pandemic, and I wouldn't advise them having equity in the hospitality sector, especially when they wouldn't have immediate access to the cash. They're better off doing the loan, getting it paid back and looking for alternate employment if they hate the employer or this scheme.