The 2017 Society for Human Resource Management conference is in New Orleans this year, which I love. I got to stay with my sister and her 60-pound pit bull for a couple of days before entering Conference-land. We went on long walks in the heat, took a yoga class and ate some good food. We spent one Friday evening at a small Irish pub, where none of these non-HR professionals knew much about HR at all — but it still came up in conversation. READ MORE
Shareholders fail to oust Mylan board, but down-voted massive salaries
Mylan shareholders today did not unseat the drug maker’s board of directors, despite calls for an ouster over the EpiPen pricing scandals and remarkably large executive salaries. READ MORE
How to negotiate compensation at a startup
Have you ever felt you were worth more than you were being paid?
I hear you. And, I want you to know that you may never quite feel compensated for your complete worth. That’s a conversation to have internally. The number on your paycheck doesn’t define your full worth. The quality of your performance and success in executing goals will garner you the appreciation you deserve. READ MORE
No easy way to measure federal employee compensation, CBO says
There’s no easy to way to calculate just how much government spends on federal employee compensation, and there’s no simple solution if lawmakers want to find ways to close compensation gaps between the public and private sector. READ MORE
Whole Foods' CEO Pay Discount Expires
Amazon's deal to buy Whole Foods may mark a number of things: the end of Whole Foods as an independent company; the end of grocery business; the end of the hard line between the internet and brick and mortar; the moment we should have known that Amazon was going to take over the economy, though I am not entirely convinced of that.
It will also mark the end of one of the most, perhaps only, reasonable executive compensation schemes in America. READ MORE
“We Want Nonprofits to Be More Like Business…until We Don’t.”
Executive compensation remains one of the most highly scrutinized activities in the nonprofit sector, yet is often described by only one data figure, the dollar amount on compensation, and not in context of the organizational budget or in comparison to other sectors. READ MORE
Partner performance management and compensation plans vs. strategy
If a CPA firm has a partner performance management and compensation plan (and many don’t), rarely is it used as a means of driving strategy and running the firm. READ MORE
Pay for performance — more style than substance?
Comp Committees appear to have gotten the message when it comes to executive pay for performance. As discussed in this article in the WSJ, executive compensation “is increasingly linked to performance,” but investors are now asking whether the bar for performance targets is set too low to be effective. Are companies just paying lip service to the concept? READ MORE
The maker of EpiPen is freaking out ahead of a big shareholder meeting
The letters started flying at the beginning of this week.
Mylan, the maker of EpiPen, asked to see a report written by Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), a company that provides advice to shareholders ahead of company votes and shareholder meetings, before its publication. READ MORE
Shareholder Proposals on Executive Compensation Decrease in 2017
Companies had seen a surge in shareholder proposals regarding executive compensation in the last few years. Indeed, we wrote about this issue as recently as November 2016 (see, Apple Must Include Shareholder Proposal on Executive Compensation in Proxy). But there has been no such surge thus far in 2017. READ MORE
Say-on-pay laws increase company valuations, study finds
When shareholders have a say on executive pay, CEO salaries decline and company valuations rise, according to a University of Georgia study.
By analyzing financial data from more than 17,000 publicly traded companies in countries that have passed say-on-pay laws and countries that haven't, researchers found such laws tie CEO pay more closely to their company's performance and increase compensation equality among top managers. READ MORE
How Companies Actually Decide What to Pay CEOs
In 2014, 500 of the highest-paid senior executives at U.S. companies made nearly 1,000 times as much money as the average American worker, after taking into account salary, bonuses, and stock-based compensation. That discrepancy is so enormous that it prompts a question: How exactly do companies come up with and calibrate the often-colossal pay packages they give to their leaders? READ MORE
Goodwill Omaha says it cut $1 million from executive pay in effort to keep tax-exempt status
Fighting to keep its thrift stores’ exemption from property taxes, Goodwill Omaha representatives told the Douglas County Board on Tuesday that the organization has cut its executive pay by about $1 million. READ MORE
District Court Dismisses Shareholder Claim that Equity Award Share Withholding Triggers Section 16(b) Liability
During the past several months, a shareholder has been submitting letters to public companies taking the position that, contrary to the customary interpretation, there is no exemption under Rule 16b-3(e) for elective share withholding by an insider. READ MORE
Pension funds team up to oppose 6 Mylan directors
Four large pension funds have asked shareholders of the drug company Mylan NV to vote against six directors, including the company's chairman, who have been nominated for re-election at the company's annual meeting June 22. READ MORE
Deferring compensation now could help you in retirement
There are obviously many retirement vehicles you, as a corporate executive, have considered, but have you overlooked the option of the company-sponsored non-qualified deferred compensation plan? READ MORE
How Employee Incentive Programs Can Benefit from Behavioral Economics
When James Brewer stepped into his role as U.S. Director of Reward and Recognition at pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly in 2011, it was going through a transformation. He was tasked with coming up with a new incentive plan for employees—particularly its sales reps—that aligned with the company's new corporate strategy, Brewer explained to an audience at WorldatWork's Total Rewards 2017 conference in Washington D.C. Monday. In other words, he needed to be able to motivate and engage employees in a way that fit with the company's new direction—that was now both customer and team-focused. READ MORE
Tips For Building An Effective Total Rewards Communications Strategy
The economy is expected to continue to grow steadily, which means more people are working and fewer people are out of work. This is great news, of course, but it presents a special challenge for employers as they compete to attract increasingly job-savvy employees — either the few who are out of work or those who are already employed at other companies. A growing economy means workers have a lot of options; the only way to win the best talent is to position your company as a great place to work. READ MORE
How Well Do Firms Measure CEO Performance?
Investors have pressed for years to get companies to tie executive pay more closely to performance, and boards have increasingly complied. But now, some investors are questioning just how high they set the bar. READ MORE
How Do I Count My Performance Share Awards? Let Me Count the Ways
Wow, there are 16 different ways to count performance share awards! Well, there may not be 16 different ways, but there are 16 different purposes for which a company must count its performance share awards, some of which are the same, but many of which are different. When a company or compensation committee awards performance shares or performance share units, the number of shares delivered to the participant generally depends upon the degree of satisfaction of the performance goals set forth in the award agreement. READ MORE