Take a moment and think about your salary and wages. Your bonuses. Your stock options. What explains how much (or how little) you make? Is it your education? Your experience or seniority? Your organization’s performance, the cost of living in your area, your occupation, or your own individual performance? READ MORE
What Will it Take to Close the Gender Pay Gap for Good?
Even at the highest-ranking positions in U.S. corporations, it’s clear there's more work to be done to narrow the gender pay gap--and the gender gap overall.
In the topmost roles of the C-suite, men outnumber women by 7 to 1, and the women that do hold these top positions earn only 85 cents for every dollar earned by men, according to the most recent proxy disclosures by Russell 3000 companies. As shown in the chart below, these numbers are only fractionally better than they were five years ago. READ MORE
Big Texas Corporations Demand Storm Survivors Go Without Pay
First they had to deal with a nightmare of a winter storm, an historic assault that wiped out their power, heat, water, or all three at once.
Now they have to deal with bosses denying them pay. READ MORE
Overpaying family members is dangerous
Founders and business owners must never toy around with a family member’s remuneration package. It is a very sensitive topic as it involves money. Paying them less than what they are capable of doing is not just downright dangerous but can compromise relationships among siblings and relatives. On the other hand, paying excessive compensation to those who are not deserving can demoralize non-family employees, inevitably leading to higher attrition rate and poor performance. Unless business owners confront pain points over compensation, this problem will continue to sow division within the enterprise. READ MORE
Progressives think $15 minimum wage will be in Biden’s COVID-19 package
Leading progressive Democrats are expressing confidence that President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package will include a provision setting the federal minimum wage at $15 per hour.
In a statement released over the weekend, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he was optimistic that the Senate parliamentarian would permit the change. READ MORE
SEC Settlement Invokes Rarely Used Sarbanes-Oxley Act Provision Requiring Reimbursement of Incentive Compensation
On Feb. 2, 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a cease-and-desist order settling charges against the former CEO and CFO of WageWorks Inc. (WageWorks, or the Company),[1] stemming from the Company’s restatement of financial results, in which the SEC invoked a rarely used provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to obtain reimbursement of incentive-based compensation earned by the executives.
Section 304 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX 304) permits the SEC to order the disgorgement of bonuses and incentive-based compensation earned by the CEO and CFO in the year following the filing of any financial statement that the issuer is required to restate because of misconduct, and the reimbursement of those funds to the issuer.[2] The provision provides: READ MORE
Time To Dump The ‘Eat What You Kill’ Compensation Model
It’s surprising how often we see professional services firms get in their own way when it comes to driving new business and deepening partnerships with existing clients.
A primary culprit for this is outdated compensation practices that reward individuals over the team. This approach may have worked well 10 or 20 years ago but is no longer aligned with the need for services firms to harness all of their internal resources to better serve their increasingly global and complex clientele. READ MORE
25 highest paid hedge fund managers made $32 billion in 2020, a new record
The 25 highest paid hedge fund managers made a record $32 billion in 2020, up more than 50% over 2019, according to Institutional Investor’s Rich List. READ MORE
Publix joins a growing list of grocers offering incentives for workers to get vaccinated
Publix joined a growing list of US grocers and retailers offering incentives to workers who get the Covid-19 vaccine.
The popular Southern supermarket chain said it is offering its employees $125 gift cards when they sign up and show proof of vaccination. READ MORE
Retail giants like Walmart, Amazon, and Kroger are firing shots over rivals' minimum wages.
Massive retailers have stayed mostly quiet about looming minimum wage increases.
But they have more to say when it comes to taking shots at the competition.
When Walmart announced on Thursday it was raising some workers' wages, rival grocery chain Kroger was quick to have a response. READ MORE
Google to evaluate executives on diversity and inclusion
Alphabet Inc's Google will evaluate the performance of its vice presidents and above on team diversity and inclusion starting this year, the company said on Friday in one of several responses to concerns about its treatment of a Black scientist.
Timnit Gebru, co-leader of Google's ethical artificial intelligence research team, said in December that Google abruptly fired her after she criticized its diversity efforts and threatened to resign. READ MORE
Equity compensation in a pandemic world
COVID-19 has impacted every company. Whether it is a direct impact on short or even long-term revenues or disruption to day-to-day operations, the pandemic's reach is vast. Most businesses have been forced to adapt in some way. For many, it has been a change in where or how they get work done. For some, it is a complete re-imagining of their value proposition to meet wholly new customer needs.
At the center of this period of disruption, and inseparable from your company's ability to navigate it successfully, are your employees. READ MORE
State Individual Income Tax Rates and Brackets for 2021
Individual income taxes are a major source of state government revenue, accounting for 38 percent of state tax collections.[1] Their prominence in public policy considerations is further enhanced in that individuals are actively responsible for filing their income taxes, in contrast to the indirect payment of sales and excise taxes. READ MORE
Walmart just boosted pay to $15. It's not what you think
Walmart announced pay bumps Thursday that will bring its average hourly wage to over $15 an hour. But the move still falls short of the $15 minimum wage announced by some of its largest competitors.
Walmart, America's largest private employer, said it will raise wages for 425,000 US workers -- more than a fourth of its workforce -- to at least $13 an hour. READ MORE
Executive compensation: 2021 and beyond
COVID-19 is causing “unprecedented, negative economic impacts in an accelerated fashion,” comments Alvarez & Marsal.
“Many experts, furthermore, believe that the coronavirus crisis is just getting started, and that the countermeasures that are causing such negative economic impacts may last not for weeks, but for months or longer. Whether engaged in the airline, hotel, restaurant, physical fitness, cruise line, retail, oil and gas, or any other industry, significant impacts will flow through all sectors, with few, if any, insulated from the downturn.” READ MORE
How to design CEO pay to punish iniquity, not just reward virtue
IF BUSINESS HAD a Moses, “Thou shalt link pay to performance” would be on his tablet. Compensation committees have, however, tended to stick to a narrow reading of the commandment. Whereas they reward good behavior, deterring the bad is an afterthought. Worried that this may lead bosses to adopt a mentality of “heads we win, tails shareholders lose”, boards are rethinking their priorities—partly in response to pressure from regulators and investors, but also to shifting social winds. Perfectly balanced incentives remain as elusive as the promised land. Still, measures designed to ensure that misconduct does not pay are becoming central to the debate about how to craft bosses’ salary plans. READ MORE
Gender pay gap persists even at executive level, new study finds
Even women who climb their way to corporate America's highest ranks are paid less than their male counterparts, new research confirms.
The highest-paid senior executive women earned 84.6 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts in 2019, according to a study of corporate disclosures released Wednesday by Morningstar Inc., a financial services research firm. READ MORE
A critical look at pandemic-related executive compensation changes
With the 2021 proxy season underway, a new analysis reveals some telling findings as to what impact proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services will have on say-on-pay concerning executive compensation actions made in response to the coronavirus pandemic. READ MORE
Kroger will close more stores over hazard pay laws for workers
Kroger will close two stores in Seattle over the city's $4-an-hour hazard pay requirement for grocery workers, an escalation of the grocery chain's push against newly-passed hazard pay laws growing on the West Coast. READ MORE
Biden’s $15 wage proposal: Job killer or a boon for workers?
President Joe Biden’s effort to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour could provide a welcome opportunity for someone like Cristian Cardona, a 21-year-old fast food worker. Cardona would love to earn enough to afford to move out of his parents’ house in Orlando, Florida, and maybe scrape together money for college.
More than 1,000 miles away in Detroit, Nya Marshall worries that a $15 minimum wage would drive up her labor costs and perhaps force her to close her 2-year-old restaurant, already under strain from the viral pandemic. READ MORE