IBM sued again by its own sales staff: IT giant accused of going back on commission payments promise

IBM has been sued by sales manager Mark Briggs for allegedly capping sales commission payments despite a written commitment not to do so, joining dozens of cases claiming Big Blue screws its sales staff.

The lawsuit [PDF], filed in a US federal district court in Northern California on Friday, challenges IBM's practice of insisting that it does not have a contractual obligation to pay commissions spelled out in written documents provided to its employees. It is at least the 30th lawsuit since 2014 in which IBM has argued its "incentive plan letters" are not enforceable contracts. READ MORE

Flexible pay will be essential for the hybrid era

For managing the performance pay in an effective manner, the performance objectives should be focussed on a particular outcome, be specific, attainable, measurable, related to time which is mostly at an individual level. According to Nimitt Thakkar, Assistant General Manager HR, CapitalVia Global Research Ltd, at the organization level, goals of cost control, rising efficiency, increasing productivity, project completion and customer service are prominent and for such goals, flexible pay and benefits become important. Organizations also try to motivate their employees, not only through monetary flexible components, but also make best use of the non-monetary flexible benefit programs. READ MORE

Why The SEC Is Re-Examining CEOs’ Trading Practices

Earlier this year, the SEC began to explore changes that would bring improper use of these plans to heel. This new focus comes not so long after executives of pharmaceutical companies sold a collective half a billion dollars of stock in 2020 – frequently through such plans.

In examining 10b5-1 plans, the SEC has shown a spotlight on a pervasive problem trend in the realm of executive compensation – the use of supposedly long-term tools for short-term pay. The reasonable goal of a 10b5-1 plan is to schedule the sale of a set amount of stock on a regular basis. But about a third of plans since 2004 involve just a single trade. Clearly, what was intended to be a tool to provide structured liquidity over time is being gamed to provide one-off paydays instead. READ MORE

Duty of “Good Faith and Fair Dealing” Ensures Your Executive Compensation is not Taken Away from You

Have you been cheated out of a benefit you earned on the job?  Was your job terminated for no good reason when you were on the eve of making a big score?  Do you think you were fired just so the company could keep the money or equity and not pay you?

Even as a C-level, VP or other senior executive, you, like most executives, are likely to be an employee “at will”.  And as an at-will employee, you may think there is nothing you can do when you have been deprived of what you rightfully earned as your executive compensation. READ MORE

USPS has shorted some workers’ pay for years

Nancy Campos’ back ached as she loaded more than 100 Amazon packages onto her truck. The 59-year-old grandmother, a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service, had worked 13 days in a row without a lunch break, and now she was delivering on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday to keep up with a never-ending flow of boxes.

At the end of her shift that January day, Campos filled out her time sheet. Then she took a picture of it — for proof. READ MORE

Apple just banned a pay equity Slack channel but lets fun dogs channel lie

Apple has barred employees from creating a Slack channel to discuss pay equity. A member of the employee relations team, Apple’s version of HR, said that while the topic was “aligned with Apple’s commitment to pay equity,” it did not meet the company’s Slack Terms of Use.

“Slack channels are provided to conduct Apple business and must advance the work, deliverables, or mission of Apple departments and teams,” the employee relations representative told employees. READ MORE

Planned 2022 Salary Increases for American Workers are Trending Upward

Salary.com's Annual U.S. National Salary Budget Survey reveals that 41 percent of organizations plan on having a higher salary increase budget in 2022 than they did in 2021, representing the first significant shift in merit increases in the last 10 years of survey data. For perspective, last year just under 10 percent of organizations planned a higher salary budget increase than the prior year. The survey was conducted in June of 2021 by Salary.com, the leading SaaS provider of cloud-based compensation market data, surveys and analytics. READ MORE

Employers with Illinois Employees: Revise Form Noncompete and Nonsolicitation Provisions Before January 1, 2022

Governor J.B. Pritzker recently signed into law Public Act 102-0358 (“Act”), which dramatically reforms the law in Illinois governing both noncompete and nonsolicit provisions. The Act is not retroactive, and goes into effect on January 1, 2022. All noncompete and nonsolicit provisions entered into “after the effective date” of the Act will be null and void unless they comply with the Act’s requirements. READ MORE

3 trap questions in salary negotiation (and a script for answering them)

Going through the interview process was stressful enough, but now there are trap questions during salary negotiations?

Yes, yes there are. The employer’s job is to get the best candidate at the lowest cost while the new employee is trying to get the highest compensation package. 

Am I the only one who is frustrated by job advertisements that make no mention of salary? The idea of going through a process blind and not knowing what you may be offered can be extremely annoying. Advertisements are structured this way for a reason. READ MORE

Workplace Benefits Could Make the Difference in Ongoing Talent War

Four million Americans voluntarily left the workforce in April 2021 alone ― one of the highest numbers ever recorded. In addition, more are planning or thinking of leaving their jobs, as Microsoft estimates that 41% of employees are contemplating leaving their current positions.

This trend ― the “Great Resignation”― is fueled by employees looking for better pay, greater flexibility and perhaps a career change post-pandemic. Although it’s understandable to worry about how this trend affects your company’s turnover and retention, HR leaders should also view it as an opportunity to attract and retain top talent by listening to their needs and supporting them effectively. READ MORE

Environmental, Social, and Governance Disclosures in Proxy Statements: Benchmarking the Fortune 50

It is no secret that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has recently ramped up its focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures. In February 2021, Acting Chair of the SEC Allison Herren Lee directed the Division of Corporation Finance to enhance focus on climate-related disclosure in public company filings, including reviewing the extent to which public companies address the topics identified in the SEC’s 2010 Guidance Regarding Disclosure Related to Climate Change. Then, in March 2021, she requested public comment on climate change disclosures (which has generated over 600 comment letters, the vast majority of which are supportive of mandatory climate disclosure rules), and new SEC rules on climate risk and human capital disclosures are expected to be proposed yet this year. In addition, holding true to its “all-of-SEC” approach to ESG, the SEC has formed a Climate and ESG Task Force (composed of 22 members and led by the Acting Deputy Director of Enforcement), which will use data analytics to look for material gaps and misstatements in climate risk disclosures under existing rules. READ MORE

CEOs promised to take pay cuts during the pandemic. Did they?

When the pandemic struck last year, many CEOs across the globe announced they’d cut their own salaries. Now that we’re 17 months into this crisis, it prompts the question: Did business leaders go through with this pledge? While the COVID-19 recession was among the hardest initial economic shocks ever experienced, it was also followed by one of the fastest economic recoveries on record. Some businesses even boomed during the pandemic.

To see how many companies followed through on their leadership pay cuts, Fortune partnered with Diligent, a leading New York–based SaaS GRC (governance, risk, and compliance) company. For the analysis, Diligent looked at Russell 3000 companies—an index of the largest 3,000 U.S. companies by market capitalization. READ MORE

You know your salary. But how much are you really making? Calculate your total compensation

So many factors go into deciding whether to quit your job, but pay is a big one.

Even if money isn't your top priority, it's important to figure out how much you're actually getting from your current employer because what you make is more than just your salary or wage.

Estimating your total compensation gives you a truer measure of how much your employer actually spends on you. And it will help you figure out if a new job offer will work as well or better for you financially. READ MORE

Executive MBA vs. traditional MBA: How careers and pay prospects stack up

Since Harvard University established the first MBA program more than 100 years ago, schools have continued to offer a variety of different options. From full-time to part-time and online programs, the MBA offers business professionals the opportunity to advance their careers. This degree helps prepare professionals for management roles or for a transition to a different career path, and an EMBA caters to full-time working professionals who want to reach the highest levels of management in their current industries. READ MORE

Extra unemployment benefits ending soon, leaving millions without an income

Millions of Americans are poised to lose their unemployment benefits in less than one week, as the massive safety net that Congress put in place in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic continues to unravel.  

A report published by the left-leaning Century Foundation found that 7.5 million workers face the loss of jobless aid on Sept. 6 – Labor Day, the official cut-off date for three relief programs that were first created in March 2020 and renewed twice by Congress as the virus forced an unprecedented shutdown of the nation's economy, pushing unemployment to the highest level since the Great Depression. READ MORE

Why Google's Plan to Cut Remote Worker Pay Is a Dumb Idea

Google may reduce the salaries of employees who choose to work at home full-time, based on the cost of living where they live, according to an internal calculator viewed by Reuters. It's an idea that's gaining traction in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. It may seem sensible, given that a salary that barely covers a San Francisco studio apartment might get you a mansion in, say, Topeka. That's the logic Google says it's using. "Our compensation packages have always been determined by location," a spokesperson told Reuters. READ MORE

High pay for COVID-19 nurses leads to shortages at some hospitals

Before the coronavirus pandemic, Ivette Palomeque made $45 an hour on a flexible schedule as a staff intensive-care nurse at Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston.

Today, she earns $120 an hour working in an ICU in McAllen, Texas, the latest in a string of "travel nurse" jobs she has held over the past 16 months. The journey that has taken her from Miami to New York City and back to Texas. READ MORE

Biden announces plans to give pay raise to federal employees

President Biden on Friday announced plans to give all federal civilian employees an average 2.7 percent pay raise, consistent with the increases he had proposed in his 2022 budget.

″I have determined that for 2022, the across-the-board base pay increase will be 2.2 percent and locality pay increases will average 0.5 percent, resulting in an overall average increase of 2.7 percent for civilian Federal employees,” Biden wrote in a letter to congressional leaders Friday. READ MORE