Possible Options for Participant Relief Under Section 409A Plans in the Time of Coronavirus

The coronavirus pandemic has caused widespread economic uncertainty and unanticipated liquidity issues for a wide range of individuals, including plan participants of nonqualified deferred compensation plans. In these precarious times, many employers are seeing an increase in requests from plan participants for immediate distributions of deferred compensation from their nonqualified plan accounts. READ MORE

The ghost of Milton Friedman will haunt the markets until companies fix CEO pay

Fifty years ago this week, the New York Times Sunday Magazine published an essay by the Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman. The central premise of the Friedman Doctrine was that to continue to prosper, American business needed to stay globally competitive—and that required executives to focus only on profits and share price. He called for executives to ignore the distraction of the myriad social responsibilities that go beyond the legal minimum. READ MORE

Fighting Pay Inequity Starts In Your Interview

While there are many chapters in a job interview, there is no standard order like turning pages in a book. We do not get a table of contents before the interview. Examples of interview chapters are the introductory set, the skills review set, the story-telling set and the “Do you have any questions?” set. Additionally, recruiters usually ask a compensation set of questions to fill out their reports. READ MORE

You Get What You Pay For

“You get what you pay for.”

This axiom has guided my views on executive compensation since my time on the Vancity Credit Union board in Vancouver, BC, in the 1990s. Back then, the board of directors of the world’s largest community-based credit union was struggling to motivate its executives to deliver on its social mission. Then a breakthrough moment occurred: We discovered that all our compensation incentives were directed solely at financial performance, with no incentive focusing on the social numbers. READ MORE

DOL Proposes New Rule on Independent Contractor Classification

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) unveiled a proposed rule on September 22, 2020 to clarify whether a worker is or isn’t an independent contractor for purposes of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).  The proposed rule adds a new Part 795 to Title 29 of the Code of Federal Regulations, entitled “Employee or Independent Contractor Classification Under The Fair Labor Standards Act.” READ MORE

How to Effectively Tackle the Most Unusual Compensation Cycle Ever

There is no doubt that 2020 will go down as an extraordinary year. The humanitarian and economic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic has been felt far and wide. For total rewards professionals, this means year-end planning for 2021 will certainly deviate from the norm. In fact, for some companies, the usual plan of action may be completely irrelevant. So, how does one deal with the forthcoming cycle when everything feels so different? READ MORE