CEOs and insiders sell a record $69 billion of their stock, and the year isn’t over yet

CEOs and corporate insiders have sold a record $69 billion in stock in 2021, as looming tax hikes and lofty share prices encourage many to take profits.

From Satya Nadella at Microsoft to Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, CEOs, founders and insiders have been cashing in their stock at the highest pace on record. As of Monday, sales by insiders are up 30% from 2020 to $69 billion, and up 79% versus a 10-year average, according to InsiderScore/Verity, which excludes sales by large institutional holders. READ MORE

13 In-Demand, High-Salary Skills Every Tech Professional Needs To Know About

Tech professionals choose their field for a variety of reasons, ranging from the challenging and creative aspects of the work to the ability to play a role in improving the ways people live and work. Money may not be the primary factor in a fulfilling career in the tech industry, but it’s not an unimportant consideration, either. 

It’s smart for newcomers in any field to pay attention to the skills that are and will soon be in high demand—and which often come with generous compensation. Below, 13 industry experts from Forbes Technology Council share some of the IT skills that will be yielding high salaries in the next five years. READ MORE

Before 2021 Ends, Ask Your Boss For A Big Salary Increase To Compensate For The Rapid Rise In Inflation

This week starts the holiday season. Soon we’ll be at the end of the year. During this time period companies traditionally offer performance reviews and tell employees if they are getting a salary increase or not. In sectors such as Wall Street, bankers eagerly await their bonus numbers as it's a significant part of their overall compensation package. READ MORE

CEO Fined Over Undisclosed Perks

Texas oilfield services firm ProPetro and former CEO Dale Redman have settled charges that they understated his executive perks by failing to disclose ProPetro had reimbursed him for more than $400,000 in personal and travel expenses.

According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, ProPetro did not include the expenses, including Redman’s use of his personal Learjet for trips that were not directly related to the performance of his CEO duties, in its proxy statements for fiscal 2017 and 2018. READ MORE

It’s important to understand all your options with a deferred compensation plan

For those eligible, a deferred compensation plan is a powerful employee benefit to accelerate savings and reduce taxes. But they aren’t without tradeoffs.

Every year we hear from people who want to evaluate participating in the program — they strive to make a prepared, confident election, only to spend way too much time analyzing a hundred different variables and ultimately rush the decision each year. READ MORE

This UK bank has moved to a four-day work week without cutting pay

A British bank has adopted a four-day work week for all its employees without cutting pay, saying it's the largest UK company so far to make such a move.

Atom Bank announced on Tuesday that it had also reduced the weekly hours of its 430 staff to 34 from 37.5 and expected most workers to take either Monday or Friday off. The change is voluntary and would mean staff working slightly longer days. READ MORE

New Laws Are Forcing Employers to Share Salary Details With Applicants

When looking for a job, it can take hours of interviews and days of preparation to get an answer to a very basic yet crucial question: How much does the gig pay?

Broach the salary question too soon, and an employer might view it negatively. Avoid the question or salary negotiations altogether, and you risk getting underpaid. It’s a delicate song and dance. But a new wave of laws, which are requiring private companies to fork over salary details, could end that rigamarole once and for all. READ MORE

Using a Non-Compete to Create a Substantial Risk of Forfeiture Under a Section 457(f) Plan: Limited (But Meaningful) Opportunities

The Treasury Department’s proposed regulations regarding the income tax treatment of “ineligible plans” of tax-exempt employers under Code Section 457(f), published in June 2016, were greeted with much fanfare. (Final regulations have not yet been published, but taxpayers may rely on the proposed regulations now.) Section 1.457(f)-12 of the proposed regulations (the “Proposed Regulations”) attempts to fill in the gaps, and iron out some of the inconsistencies, between the general rules governing deferred compensation plans under Code Section 409A and the special rules governing “ineligible plans” (“Section 457(f) plans”). READ MORE

Stock Options: To Qualify, or Not to Qualify? That is the Question.

Options to purchase stock of an employer continue to be a popular form of equity-based compensation, particularly among start-ups and other privately-held companies.

One perennial question companies face in designing stock option programs is the extent to which they should grant nonqualified stock options, known as “NQSOs,” or statutory stock options, known as “incentive stock options” or “ISOs.” READ MORE

Some firms thrived during Covid and then got their PPP Covid relief loans forgiven

In late June, Sharps Compliance, a Houston-based medical waste management company, reported spectacular financial results. The rollout of Covid-19 vaccines had increased demand for the company’s services, Sharps said, and its earnings had more than quadrupled. The company’s board granted Sharps’ top three executives twice the compensation they’d received a year earlier based on the performance; the trio shared almost $1 million more than they’d received in fiscal 2020, Securities and Exchange Commission filings show. READ MORE

Unions and Bargaining Over Pay: Two-Tier Wage Systems, Explained

Thousands of John Deere workers have been on strike for more than a month. Nearly 1,500 Kellogg’s workers likely will celebrate Thanksgiving on the picket line. More than 30,000 Kaiser Permanente workers narrowly avoided a strike this week through an 11th-hour deal with management.

The common thread? Tiered wage proposals that help companies cut costs but that unions say cheat new workers out of pay and retirement benefits. READ MORE