Ousted McDonald's CEO returns $105M after misconduct

Former McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook has paid back more than $105 million in equity awards and cash to the burger giant after it learned that he had lied about the extent of his misconduct while he was its top executive.

"During my tenure as CEO, I failed at times to uphold McDonald’s values and fulfill certain of my responsibilities as a leader of the company," Easterbrook said in a prepared statement issued Thursday by McDonald’s. "I apologize to my former co-workers, the board and the company’s franchisees and suppliers for doing so." READ MORE

Managing Compensation and Benefits in a Competitive Labor Market

In 2020, businesses were in a period of great uncertainty. Flash forward one year, and employers are in a highly competitive labor market.

Compensation, Retirement and Benefits (CRB) programs are a crucial factor for recruiting and retaining top talent in 2021. Looking ahead to 2022, employers need to strategize about how to keep compensation and benefits programs competitive, while ensuring alignment with strategic company goals. READ MORE

UPS Pays $1 Million To Settle Wage Theft Allegations Over Charitable Deductions

UPS workers in New York will receive more than $1 million from UPS after alleging the company illegally redirected money from their paychecks to a charitable campaign.

The wage theft lawsuit revolves around the shipping company’s annual fundraiser for the United Way. According to the workers, in 2019 and 2020 the company diverted money from their checks ― typically a $1 or $2 each time ― even though it didn’t have their written permission to do so. READ MORE

Women’s Wages Are Now Growing Faster Than Men’s

There’s a tendency to gender our recessions. There was the “man-cession” following the 2008 Great Financial Crisis, when manufacturing and construction jobs dried up, and then those out-of-work men declined to get government-funded retraining in areas like health care, which have usually been worked by women. This time around, the pandemic “she-cession” has come with a child-care crisis, pushing women out of the workforce in droves. At the peak of the economic collapse last April, the unemployment rate among women was 15.5 percent, while it was 13.1 percent for men — numbers that perhaps deepened the overall wage gap of 93 cents to every dollar earned by a man. READ MORE

Over 1,000 Microsoft employees shared their salaries in a leaked spreadsheet in a push for pay transparency.

Microsoft grew its employee base by more than 23,000 workers in 2021, seemingly unaffected by the woes of a tightening talent market for tech labor. In total, the enterprise software and cloud giant now employs nearly 190,000 workers worldwide, including about 107,000 in the US.

But how much is Microsoft — the most valuable company in the world — paying its employees? READ MORE

Nonqualified Deferred Compensation and the Special Timing Rule HR Professionals Should Be Aware of.

Twenty years ago this month the Enron Corporation imploded in spectacular fashion and declared bankruptcy. In the weeks leading up to its bankruptcy filing, over 100 highly compensated employees raced to receive early distributions of nonqualified deferred compensation, and were ultimately successful in removing over $50 million from the company before the bankruptcy filing. One of the most significant consequences of the Enron story was enactment of Section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), which now governs the time and form of payment of nonqualified deferred compensation. READ MORE