Inflation eroded pay by 1.7% over the past year

High inflation overshadowed a big increase in wages over the past year, amounting to a nearly 2% smaller paycheck for the average worker, according to federal data published Thursday.

Employers have raised wages at about the fastest rate in 15 years, as they compete for talent amid record job openings and quit levels. But consumer prices for goods and services are rising at their fastest annual pace in four decades, eroding those gains for many Americans. READ MORE

Employers Need To Invest In Low-Wage Employees To Prevent The Great Resignation

It's estimated that around 44% of Americans are in low-wage jobs, which despite the low pay are often among the most dangerous in the labor market. These often tedious and dirty roles can be overlooked by society and employers alike but the so-called Great Resignation has shone a fresh light on these roles as organizations have struggled to fill what are underappreciated yet hugely important roles for the efficient and effective functioning of so many organizations. READ MORE

There's A New Way To Watch The Widening Income Gap in (Almost) Real Time

Goldman Sachs paid its CEO David Solomon $35 million in 2021, the investment bank announced recently. The handsome sum— a reflection of the fact that the investment bank netted nearly $60 billion under his watch last year—puts Solomon in the top 0.01% of earners in 2021, alongside such other lucre luminaries as Morgan Stanley’s James Gorman ($35 million), JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon ($34.5 million) and 30,000 or so other folks. Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, American households in this teensy tiny slice of society have increased their income by about 8%. READ MORE

Common Reasons for Flagged Pay Differences

Some employers have a practice of periodically conducting statistical analyses of employee compensation, under attorney-client privilege, to identify potential areas of risk related to pay equity concerns. These analyses are usually focused on gender and race or national origin. Through these statistical analyses, employees are placed into comparator groups and the compensation of the employees in those groups is analyzed for differences that remain after controlling for relevant factors available in the data set. Such factors may include data points such as job title, tenure with the company, time in position, location/market, and performance ratings. Once the analysis has controlled for the available factors, the statistical model will flag those comparator groups where the pay differences are statistically significant and adverse to a particular demographic. READ MORE

How to Get a Pay Raise in Today’s Hot Labor Market

Want to make more money? Maybe you should threaten to quit.

That’s what workers told us they are doing — and it’s working, as we lay out in this story about the labor market. At a time of unexpectedly high demand for talent, employees are securing offers from different firms to land raises at their current jobs. Some have even increased their pay by around $100,000. It’s happening in other parts of the world, too. But experts say depending on where you live, your time may be running out. READ MORE

MBA Salaries & Bonuses At The Top 25 B-Schools

Stanford Graduate School of Business Dean Jonathan Levin praised the adaptability and resilience of his school’s most recent graduating MBA class last month to mark the release of Stanford’s 2021 employment report. But the words Levin chose could apply to just about all of the MBAs from the top B-schools in the United States.

“More than other classes,” Levin said, “the Class of 2021 learned how to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty, and to be adaptable and resilient. We are thrilled to see how they are applying what they have learned, going on to incredible roles in numerous industries.” READ MORE

Class action challenges company’s non-compensation of travel and meeting time

Whether to pay any travel time for employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) can be complicated. Employees who believe they should be compensated for that time often challenge non-payment. A dispute over travel time with one employee can sometimes even blossom into a class action lawsuit involving a large number of employees and former employees. An oilfield employer recently found itself battling exactly that sort of expanding lawsuit. READ MORE

Few companies tie CFO compensation to ESG performance

Almost 75% of CFOs say their job is impacted by environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance expectations but only 6% of them have their pay tied to how well they do against those goals, a Deloitte survey shows.

The finding suggests a disconnect between the importance companies say they place on ESG performance and the incentives they give their finance leaders to meet their goals.  READ MORE

Here's what happens when salary is actually included in job listings

Job listings can be extremely detailed, with long lists of responsibilities and required skills, descriptions of company culture and perks, and numerous other reasons for why you might want to work there. But there's often one glaring omission: the pay.

Only about 12% of postings from US online job sites include salary ranges, according to Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter. And that's an increase from 8% in 2019. READ MORE

Only One-Quarter of Employees Say Their Employer is Transparent About Pay

A new pulse survey by Salary.com reveals that employees perceive a pervasive lack of pay transparency and pay equity at their organizations. Only 23 percent of employees said their employer is transparent about how people are paid in their organization and that it is okay to ask questions about their salary. Meanwhile, almost half (46 percent) of employees do not think they are paid fairly compared to people in the same role at other companies and over a third (37 percent) do not think they are paid fairly compared to their internal colleagues. Against the backdrop of a heated war for talent, this perception of unfair pay does not bode well for organizations, particularly as compensation ranked as the top consideration of respondents when evaluating a company for employment. READ MORE

How New York City’s Salary Transparency Law Could Worsen Labor Issues in the City — and Benefit Remote Workers

A new law in New York City will require employers and hiring managers to include salary ranges for all job postings and advertisements.

The law, which was adopted on Jan. 15, is set to go into effect on May 15, and will be applicable to all employers with four or more employees. The goal of the regulation is to encourage pay transparency and lessen the gender pay gap by requiring employers to list the minimum and maximum salary that they would pay for each new position or internal transfer. READ MORE

It’s time to think differently about benefits and compensation packages

“The Big Quit,” also known as the Great Resignation, has had a dramatic impact, not just on employee turnover and the loss of talent, but across all aspects of business from supply chain challenges to workforce law changes, product pricing impacts and wage and benefit budgetary concerns. With turnover surging at more than 50% across the country, and inflation surpassing 7% at the end of 2021, it is important to look at the impact all of this has on employee wages. READ MORE

The Principles of Linking Pay to Anything

Rob Markey of Bain & Company's global customer strategy and marketing practice wrote a great series of Harvard Business Review articles awhile back on the perils of linking pay to customer feedback. As any of us who've considered using customer feedback metrics in incentive design know, this can be a potential minefield. 

Markey's cautionary advice on pay linkage is well written and worth our consideration beyond the boundaries of customer feedback metrics ... before we link anything to pay.

With that in mind, let's consider his five essentials — preconditions for trust and credibility — in the context of broader compensation design: READ MORE