Being the CEO of a company is a great job, if you can get it. It’s an even better job if you can be paid NOT to get it! Coty is the multinational beauty manufacturer of brands such as: Calvin Klein fragrances, Davidoff perfumes, Adidas Bodycare, and Sally Hansen nail care products. The company has...
This post is a roundup of recent and impending activity in the world of executive compensation. Normally, this is the time of the year where we see the hand wringing and tearing of clothes that have come as a result of annual Say On Pay voting. But, let’s be honest, each year only 2% of...
I generally write about incentive compensation, executive compensation and performance issues, but today’s post is written from a very different perspective. I hope you will bear with me on this. “Living Wage” is a term thrown about casually in the media and among politicians. It is not minimum wage. In fact, it has a very...
Sleep well sweet Prince, or perhaps Emperor. We now send executive compensation to its inevitable peaceful and infinite slumber. Shown brightly for a few decades, your glory days are over. April 29, 2015 was officially the beginning of the end of soaring executive pay. The SEC proposed a new rule on executive pay for performance,...
Many times, people who find out that part of my business is focused on executive compensation consulting ask how I can support “CEOs who are already making so much money.” I usually answer with a variation of “but, hardly anyone makes as much as you think.” When I inform people that most (>75%) CEOs make...
Pay ratios are the most commonly used tool when discussing the unfairness between executive pay and that of the rank and file. Recently, on the PayScale Career News blog which caters to individuals managing their careers, there was an article showing CEO-worker pay ratios at several well-known companies. Ratios like 1,034:1 (Walmart) and 0:1 (Google)...
Let’s get the obvious out of the way. Yes, CEOs want to make sure they are paid well. Paid well when compared to peers. Paid well when compared to last year’s pay. Paid well when they do a great job. And, of course, still paid pretty well when they don’t do such a great job....
I read a recent article by Dan Ariely on how we measure thrift. Mr. Ariely, is the author of “Predictably Irrational” and “The Upside of Irrationality.” He is also a professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University. He used a simple example of how we may choose to purchase expensive premium coffee over...
Geometric progression of pay from one pay grade or level to the next sounds pretty crazy. But, while doing research for a recent presentation on equity compensation, I found more than one source that stated that doubling the equity from one level to the next was a standard rule of thumb. When we look at...
We’ve all heard some version of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Ugly Duckling“ at some point in our lives. For the record, the original is sadder and more intense than I remember. The summary is this. A bird is hatched. It is ugly and misunderstood. Others ostracize it without even knowing what it is. It doesn’t...
