Did anyone hear the news this summer about yet another Silicon Valley tech giant announcing an extension of work-from-home arrangements for employees for at least another year? It’s not really surprising in the age of COVID-19. READ MORE
Fastest-growing jobs that pay over $100K
With the new college year underway, students will be seeking careers with a steady income. Stacker lists the fastest-growing jobs paying over $100,000, using 2019 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Projections (released Sept. 1, 2020) and Occupational Employment Statistics (released March 31, 2020). READ MORE
“Lower-pay, higher-risk”: Coronavirus layoffs send middle-class workers down the economic ladder
From shattered career prospects to pay cuts and sudden shift work, the pandemic is forcing skilled labor and middle-class workers into lower wages and gig jobs. READ MORE
Inequality Exists Even Where Occupations Are the Same
Occupation is a big determinant of how much a person makes. But incomes can vary widely among workers of different sexes and races who do the same type of work. READ MORE
Key Issues in Managing Equity Awards in M&A Transactions
One of the most important issues that arises in any M&A transaction from a compensation perspective is the treatment of stock options, restricted stock, restricted stock units (RSUs) or other compensatory equity awards, whether vested or unvested, held by executives and other employees in the transaction. Below is a high-level summary of key issues to consider in managing equity awards in the transaction. Read More
Performance Management Must Evolve to Survive COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown performance management systems into chaos -- and the reactions have been telling. READ MORE #Performance Management
How To Design A Sales Compensation Plan That Rewards Performance And Boosts Revenue
In my 30-plus years as a sales executive and sales leadership consultant, I’ve identified a critical error most sales organizations make: not crafting a sales compensation plan that effectively motivates and rewards performance as it drives bottom-line financial results. READ MORE
Get Your Money's Worth From Your Total Rewards Package
A down economy is forcing organizations to make massive spending cuts, and total rewards packages are under scrutiny.
Total rewards packages can sway a job seeker but after that, they're just payroll costs -- and payroll accounts for 15% to 50% of a company's revenue. READ MORE
14 Tips To Better Align Sales And Marketing Teams
Sales and marketing teams are notoriously difficult to work together although they share the same ultimate objective of converting customers. In fact, one of the key elements that make a business successful is getting marketing and sales departments to share goals and ideals while working together to attain those objectives. READ MORE
Restricted Stock Awards? Two Key Strategies You Should Be Thinking About
Restricted stock awards are an increasingly popular form of executive compensation, but they do require a bit of maintenance to make sure one company does not dominate your investment plan. When your salary, your portfolio, stock incentives, and possibly even a pension all lay in the hands of one company, it is prudent to diversify, but many overlook the importance of creating a sound strategy. READ MORE
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
What Counts as a “Perk” During the COVID-19 Pandemic?
Companies have offered benefits to employees, including executive officers, to enable them to continue their work and otherwise to make their lives easier during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now the SEC has released additional guidance as to when these benefits constitute perquisites or personal benefits that should be included in executive compensation for proxy disclosure purposes. 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
IRS Takes Non-Employee Compensation Out of 1099-MISC: New Form 1099-NEC
What’s old is new again - in the tax filing world, anyway. If you’re accustomed to filing Form 1099-MISC to report nonemployee compensation, you’ll need to reorder your IRS alphabet for your 2020 returns. The government is now bringing back Form 1099-NEC for that purpose, a form that was last used in 1982, during the Reagan administration. READ MORE
Former Volvo CEO: Companies still aren't giving workers what they deserve
Grocery store clerks, delivery personnel, truckers and health care and factory workers have kept the US economy from collapsing entirely during the pandemic. Yet many of these workers feel they aren't getting the pay or respect they deserve. They can't make a living wage or take paid leave when they get sick. 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
New Census data reveals no progress has been made on closing the overall gender pay gap
New data released by the U.S. Census Bureau shows that, between 2018 and 2019, no progress was made on closing the overall wage gender gap, with the average full-time working woman still earning just $0.82 for every dollar earned by men. READ MORE
Pay transparency takes center stage as more workers talk wages
In recent years, workers across entire companies and even entire industries have taken pay transparency to a new level via crowdsourced spreadsheets. 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