While many advisors excel at rainmaking, they often lack skills around hiring and compensation. Getting this right is even more important in a tight job market to prevent crippling business mistakes. Barron’s Advisor spoke to several experts who routinely counsel financial advisors about hiring and compensation best practices. Here are their recommendations: READ MORE
New Year, Same Old California Pay Data Reporting Requirements
After many delays, employers nationwide just filed their 2020 EEO-1 reports in November. But it’s already time for California employers to begin preparing their annual pay data submission to the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH).
The Background
In 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill (SB) 973, which creates massive pay reporting requirements for California employers that also file EEO-1 Reports. Under SB 973 private employers with 100 or more employees and at least one employee in California must report certain pay and related data to DFEH. READ MORE
What counts as pay transparency? Depends on who you ask
Americans have a cultural aversion to discussing personal income. A 2018 survey from Capital Group found “salary or household income” to be Americans’ foremost conversational taboo, ahead of “marriage problems, mental illness, drug addiction, race, sex, politics, and religion.” And when it comes to the corporate world, many companies make it a matter of policy to keep the reality of who makes how much locked in a figurative vault; according to 2021 research from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, “nearly half of full-time workers reported they were either discouraged or prohibited from discussing wages or salary” between 2017 and 2018. READ MORE
Volunteers May Work For Nonprofits Without Compensation
The California Court of Appeal has definitively resolved an issue that was until now somewhat ambiguous: Can volunteers in fact volunteer their time for nonprofit organizations without receiving pay or other forms of compensation? The answer is YES. READ MORE
World's richest man gets $32BILLION richer
The world's richest man started the new year richer, with Tesla founder Elon Mask adding $32.6 billion to his net worth bringing his fortune to $304.2 billion.
Musk's windfall once again took his worth over the $300 billion mark that he briefly passed in November, becoming the first person to ever do so. READ MORE
Bernie Sanders: Pay your workers better. Warren Buffett: That's not my job
Warren Buffett, the ninth-richest person on the planet, says it's not up to him to settle a strike by 450 steelworkers at a company he owns.
Sen. Bernie Sanders wrote a letter to the Berkshire Hathaway CEO, requesting that he intervene in a United Steelworkers union strike at the Special Metals plant in Huntington, West Virginia. They've been on strike for three months. Special Metals is a unit of Precision Castparts, which is owned by Buffett's Berkshire. READ MORE
What Do You Think You Should Be Paid?
It’s now a common job interview question. It can also be a trap. Here’s how to answer. READ MORE
Rethinking Fairness in Exec Comp Amid a Changing World
A frequent criticism leveled against executive compensation is that “it’s just not fair.” If looking purely at the statistics, one may draw a similar conclusion.
The average annual pay for United States workers in 2020 according to Bureau of Labor Statistics was $52,168, while the average CEO/median worker pay ratio disclosed by the S&P 500 was 299:1. The total pay for CEOs in the 300 largest US companies reviewed by Korn Ferry increased by approximately 7% annually over the last decade, while that for the average worker went up only 3%. READ MORE
Companies Are Not Disclosing Salary Information On Job Postings For All The Wrong Reasons
It takes a fairly compelling job posting to attract talented and competent applicants. There’s a lot to convey in a job post, such as what’s expected of a candidate, why the company is ideal, whether it’s remote or not, etc.
Yet so many organizations still fail to include the one thing that can be the biggest motivator: The salary. READ MORE
Latest Study Shows Employers Increasing Salary Budgets by Nearly 4%
Employees are about to see a little more in their paychecks in 2022, according to the latest Conference Board Salary Increase Budget Survey. Employers have said they plan to increase the budget for raises by 3.9% next year, the largest increase since 2008. READ MORE
Minimum wage hike among new laws taking effect Jan. 1 in Illinois
Minimum wage workers in Illinois will see a boost in their hourly pay to $12 per hour starting Jan. 1, while tenants in affordable housing units will be allowed to keep pets.
Those are just some of the more than 300 new laws that take effect in the new year.
The minimum wage increase is actually the result of a 2019 law that phases in a state minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025. This year, it will increase by $1 to $12 an hour. READ MORE
The “Wages Are Skyrocketing” Narrative Is False
“We are paying the guy cutting up fruit $19 an hour,” complained the CFO of a major agricultural producer I recently spoke with. Almost on a daily basis I speak with an executive who tells me how one of their team members received a tremendous pay increase to jump ship. The problem with such stories is that everyone likes to talk about that one example that catches everyone else’s attention. And if all you hear is such stories for a while, you end up believing that such wage increases are the norm, not the exception. READ MORE
New York City Council Passes Bill Requiring Minimum and Maximum Salaries in Job Postings
On December 15, 2021, the New York City Council passed a bill that would require New York City employers with four or more employees (including independent contractors) to disclose minimum and maximum salary information in job postings. The bill, which has not yet been signed by the mayor, would amend the New York City Human Rights Law (NYCHRL) and go into effect 120 days after it is signed into law. It remains to be seen whether Mayor-elect Eric Adams will choose to sign the bill, should Mayor Bill de Blasio fail to do so before he leaves office in the coming days. READ MORE
Hourly vs. Salary Employees: What's Better for Your Business?
Before hiring the right person for the job, you need to decide how you'll pay them. Two of the most common ways to pay employees is with a salary or an hourly wage.
You're probably wondering which option is better: the flexibility of an hourly employee or the stability of a salaried one. Of course, the answer is never as straightforward as we'd like.
Let's compare the pros and cons of hourly vs. salary workers, the different laws for each, and what to look for when determining the right fit for your business. READ MORE
SEC Comment Period Ends for Controversial Proposal Regarding Clawbacks of Executive Incentive Compensation
On October 14, Chairman Gensler announced that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would reopen the comment period for the controversial compensation clawback rule that it had initially proposed in 2015 in response to requirements of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the "proposed clawback rule"). The proposed clawback rule would direct stock exchanges to require listed companies to implement a clawback policy for incentive-based compensation paid to executive officers when a company has to restate its financials in a wide range of circumstances, including instances where financials were merely found to contain errors due to human or other error. READ MORE
SEC Proposes to Increase Reporting of Executive Compensation Votes
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has proposed a new rule that would require an institutional investment manager to report annually on Form N-PX how it voted proxies relating to executive compensation matters (i.e., "say-on-pay"). The proposal also includes amendments to Form N-PX that would enhance the information that registered closed-end investment companies, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds are required to report annually on Form N-PX. READ MORE
SEC Proposes Enhanced Disclosure Rules for Stock Repurchases
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed amendments to its rules regarding disclosure about issuer repurchases of its equity securities, often referred to as buybacks, including a new proposed Form SR to be filed with the SEC. As proposed, these new rules prescribe considerably greater disclosure relating to buybacks and, as with the proposed rules on 10b5-1 plans, have been met with strong statements of dissent by certain SEC Commissioners. READ MORE
SEC Proposes Amendments to Rule 10b5-1 Plans and Increased Disclosure About Insider Trading Policies
Major changes may be on the horizon for "Rule 10b5-1" plans, which allow (1) company insiders to sell their company's stock (often an important piece of an employee's compensation package) or (2) an issuer to repurchase its shares, each at times when it otherwise might be prevented from doing so under the insider trading laws designed to prohibit trading by those who possess material non-public information (as is often the case for a company's officers, directors and management) or because of issuer-imposed blackout periods. READ MORE
Jimmy John’s founder predicts inflation will match fast food bill to minimum wage
The U.S. economy has been recently rocked by rising inflation and Jimmy John’s founder Jimmy John Liautaud predicted pricing will hit a new milestone in an interview with Fox News Digital.
At Turning Point USA's AmericaFest, the sub shop dynamo pressed his confidence that inflation will spike the price of Americans' fast food bills to equal the minimum wage. READ MORE
5 tips for adjusting wages to high inflation, labor shortages
CFOs blindsided this year by the Great Resignation of workers are responding with a Great Recalibration of wages.
Private sector hourly wages rose 4.8% in November compared with 12 months before, according to the Labor Department. CFOs will crack open company cash boxes even more in 2022, according to business surveys, with pay increases ranging from 3.9% (Conference Board), to 5% (Grant Thornton), to 5.2% (Deloitte). READ MORE