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

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

How performance-based pay can drive up executive compensation

An increasing focus on performance-based pay and long-term incentives is driving up CEO salaries in japan.

In fiscal year 2019 alone, CEOs saw total pay jump by a huge 20.5 percent, according to a study by Willis Towers Watson (WTW), published at the end of last year. This was, say the study authors, ‘driven by a significant expansion of long-term incentives’ in Japanese pay structures. It also represents a huge jump on the 3.3 percent rise the year before. READ MORE

GE Is Blasted for Revamping Culp’s Pay Package Amid Struggles

A labor-affiliated investor group blasted General Electric Co. for approving a restructured compensation plan last year that lowered the bar for Chief Executive Officer Larry Culp to potentially collect more than $230 million.

The manufacturer has faced a performance and operational crisis due to “years of poor board oversight,” CtW Investment Group Executive Director Dieter Waizenegger said Tuesday in a letter to GE director Risa Lavizzo-Mourey. The group called on GE’s board to permanently separate the CEO and chairman roles and refrain from re-nominating the five members of the executive compensation committee for approving the pay plan. READ MORE

Evidence-Based Performance Management

Performance management is one of the most talked about and written about topics within talent management. Periodically, the practitioner literature contains numerous articles about “new” strategies for doing performance management effectively. Despite that, it is one of the two elements of talent management that are viewed most negatively by both employees and managers. Rewards management is the other. READ MORE

Behavioral Economics in Compensation Strategy

Behavioral economics research can teach us many ways that our compensation programs can be more effective.

The findings can also make us wiser in our day-to-day work. Some of the findings verify long-held beliefs but many more are counterintuitive. So if we remain unaware of the research findings, we will literally be less effective than we can be. Not a great foundation for a compensation practice! Especially since there are numerous findings that should be applied to plan design. READ MORE

How climate change can be addressed through executive compensation

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues are increasingly becoming incorporated across all aspects of organizations, including business strategies, operations and product/service offerings.

Recent global research of boards of directors by Willis Towers Watson found that 70 to 80 percent of respondents have identified ESG priorities and developed ESG implementation plans. However, only 48 percent have fully incorporated ESG into their businesses, indicating that organizations are at different stages in their ESG journeys. While the most cited reason for taking ESG actions is that they see it as the right thing to do, over three-quarters (78 percent) of respondents indicate that they believe ESG is a key contributor to strong financial performance. READ MORE

SEC enforces a clawback for accounting violations

Remember the clawback provision of SOX 304? That provision provides a reimbursement remedy against CEOs and CFOs when the issuer has restated its financial statements as a result of misconduct. Although the provision was enacted in 2002, it wasn’t until 2007 that an executive was successfully hit with a clawback claim (and a big one it was—the executive returned approximately $600 million in cash and options). And since then, SOX 304 hasn’t gotten all that much of a workout. As reflected in this Order, the SEC has just brought settled charges against the former CEO and CFO of WageWorks Inc., alleging that they made false and misleading statements and omissions, including to the company’s outside audit firm, that led to improper revenue recognition and ultimately resulted in a financial restatement. The settlements with both former executives included reimbursement of incentive-based compensation under SOX 304. READ MORE

Want to convince workers to get a COVID-19 vaccine? Try money

As many employers consider their COVID-19 vaccination plans and mull how they’ll get reluctant employees to buy into the vaccines, new data points to one effective strategy: money.

A new survey from Blackhawk Network, a payments provider, finds that although some 40% of respondents are either unsure about getting the vaccine or do not plan to get it, certain incentives could boost vaccination rates. For as little as $100, one-third of employees will agree to get vaccinated against COVID-19, the survey of 1,105 employees finds. READ MORE