Musings on Performance and Compensation. A full listing of all Performensation Blog Articles published between January 2011 and June 2011, including summaries of each.
MUSINGS ON PERFORMANCE AND COMPENSATION DATE: DATE: DATE: DATE: LOCATION: LOCATION: LOCATION: LOCATION: JUNE 22, 2011 JUNE 14, 2011 JUNE 1, 2011 MAY 19, 2011: A Founda)on Like a Ship, Not a Building This concept came to me at a recent compensaBon philosophy engagement. During an employee interview session I explained that the compensaBon philosophy would become the foundaBon for new compensaBon programs, pay levels and strategy. The very astute employee chimed in and asked: “We have a new CEO and we're expanding into new business lines and markets. Won’t a strong foundaBon anchor us to where we are right now?” MORE... They S)ll Create New Music with the Old 12 Notes, You Can Do the Same with Compensa)on The basic scale used in western music incorporates 12 notes. The scale has only five lives (staves). This combinaBon of a simple structure and limited elements has been essenBally unchanged for hundreds of years. Somehow new music is created every second of every day. These limited components have given us Beethoven’s “9th Symphony”, Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”, John Lennon’s “Let it Be” and literally MORE... Total Rewards and a Farmers Market Strategy It is fact that poor food choices lead to poor health. Of course, there are many other contributors, but when food is bad, health almost always follows. In the United States, bad food is o\en cheap food. We have found ways to feed our country more while providing less of what is truly needed. People don’t starve, but neither the body nor the brain can operate at peak performance. We find ways to keep people alive, but is it really helping them thrive? In the end, this shortterm soluBon creates too COMPENSATION CAFE COMPENSATION CAFE COMPENSATION CAFE COMPENSATION CAFE January - June 2011 The P90X Workout and Effec)ve Performance Compensa)on I like finding unique training tools for compensaBon professionals. My newest addiBon is the P90X training system. For those of you who have not tried it, or seen the infomercials, I should describe the program. An individual works out at home using a series of DVDs that guide them through varying daily exercise programs. The sessions are lead by a dynamic leader named Tony Horton. Tony is in great shape and has very high energy. The program is very intense and requires a level of personal commitment MORE...
Transcript
MUSINGS ON PERFORMANCE AND COMPENSATION
DATE:
DATE:
DATE:
DATE:
LOCATION:
LOCATION:
LOCATION:
LOCATION:
JUNE 22, 2011
JUNE 14, 2011
JUNE 1, 2011
MAY 19, 2011:
A Founda)on Like a Ship, Not a BuildingThis concept came to me at a recent compensaBon philosophy engagement. During an employee interview session I explained that the compensaBon philosophy would become the foundaBon for new compensaBon programs, pay levels and strategy. The very astute employee chimed in and asked: “We have a new CEO and we're expanding into new business lines and markets. Won’t a strong foundaBon anchor us to where we are right now?”MORE...
They S)ll Create New Music with the Old 12 Notes, You Can Do the Same with Compensa)onThe basic scale used in western music incorporates 12 notes. The scale has only five lives (staves). This combinaBon of a simple structure and limited elements has been essenBally unchanged for hundreds of years. Somehow new music is created every second of every day. These limited components have given us Beethoven’s “9th Symphony”, Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”, John Lennon’s “Let it Be” and literally MORE...
Total Rewards and a Farmers Market StrategyIt is fact that poor food choices lead to poor health. Of course, there are many other contributors, but when food is bad, health almost always follows. In the United States, bad food is o\en cheap food. We have found ways to feed our country more while providing less of what is truly needed. People don’t starve, but neither the body nor the brain can operate at peak performance. We find ways to keep people alive, but is it really helping them thrive? In the end, this short-‐term soluBon creates too
COMPENSATION CAFE
COMPENSATION CAFE
COMPENSATION CAFE
COMPENSATION CAFE
January - June 2011
The P90X Workout and Effec)ve Performance Compensa)onI like finding unique training tools for compensaBon professionals. My newest addiBon is the P90X training system. For those of you who have not tried it, or seen the infomercials, I should describe the program. An individual works out at home using a series of DVDs that guide them through varying daily exercise programs. The sessions are lead by a dynamic leader named Tony Horton. Tony is in great shape and has very high energy. The program is very intense and requires a level of personal commitment MORE...
Companies Deserve Pay Transparency, TooExecuBve compensaBon is jusBfiably complex. In fact, the total compensaBon for nearly everyone in this country is difficult to communicate. Those at the highest corporate levels generally have pay structures that reflect the complexity of their company. Regardless of the intricacy of execuBve pay programs, it is sBll a very reasonable request to ask for pay transparency from these publicly traded firms.New disclosure rules have taken another step or two up the ladder towards percent to MORE...
MAY 10, 2011COMPENSATION CAFE
Icing is Nice, but Fros)ng is Essen)al (Compensa)on is like Cupcakes)How is compensaBon like a cupcake? Is it just that people crave it, or is it something far more fundamental? I’d like to suggest that it is in understanding the important difference between frosBng and icing.Think about generic plans created from stale boilerplate documents. Or, communicaBon programs which teach lihle and inspire nothing beyond high-‐level overviews or lengthy legal documents. Or, even sales compensaBon plans promising MORE...
MAY 3, 2011FORBES EXECUTIVE PAY WATCH
Are You Pushing the Wrong Rock up the Hill?We all know the story about Sisyphus, the man who was sentenced for eternity to roll a stone up a hill only to have the stone roll back down and begin again. I have been speaking to compensaBon professionals recently who seem to have assigned themselves this same punishment. In one case, I recently spoke to a company who has placed communicaBons at the top of their “needs” list each of the last few years. They are fully aware that theirMORE...
COMPENSATION CAFE APRIL 25, 2011
COMPENSATION CAFE APRIL 19, 2011
Are Your Compensa)on Goals GeVng You to the Top of the Wrong Mountain?So o\en we see companies whose execuBves are paid handsomely only to falter shortly a\er. How does this happen? Goals were apparently met. Success seemed to have been achieved. But the final result of the goals and success is a large payout followed by a sharp corporate collapse. Are we doing something wrong when we incenBvize our execuBves?As the evoluBon of Dodd-‐Frank and mandatory Say-‐On-‐Pay quickly impacts execuBve MORE...
Compensa)on is a Balancing Ac)on (Not an Act)Have you ever used one of those workout things called a “Bosu Ball”? A Bosu Ball is half a workout ball ahached to a round plasBc plalorm. Many people workout standing on the so\, round ball side. My trainer turns it upside down and makes me stand on the flat plasBc side. Balancing with the round side on the floor requires concentraBon and constant adjustments. Add some basic weights or movements and the process makes you stronger, while exhausBng you. The trick is making frequent MORE...
Compensa)on and Loyalty: The Head and the HeartRecently, I was working onsite at a client’s office doing a series of employee engagement interviews. The company is looking for ways to move to the next level and I suggested that we find out what their employees were thinking before we guessed at any type of new compensaBon program. These types of interviews are almost always eye-‐opening and this case was no different.On the bright side, a steady stream of employees came through the interview room MORE...
What Do You Do if You Don’t Like Your (Stock) Op)onsIn my Febraury 25, 2011 posBng “Stock OpBon Moving Sale”, I suggested that rather than end up with the compensaBon equivalent of acid washed jeans or a teal mock-‐turtle neck, perhaps a beher shopper could find deals that were a bit less trendy or even tenuous. Equity compensaBon may be beher uBlized like a list of 401K investments. Imagine different tools balancing at the same Bme to create a more effecBve compensaBon package. People using a single instrument, like stock opBons, MORE...
APRIL 8, 2011
MARCH 28, 2011
MARCH 16, 2011
MARCH 8, 2011
COMPENSATION CAFE
COMPENSATION CAFE
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Curiosity May Kill Cats, but It Saves Compensa)on ProfessionalsDo you ever wonder why you are reading this arBcle? No one is paying you to read this. Your boss will probably never even know that you read it. Why take a few more minutes out of your busy day for something that only you truly value? The answer is simple. You are a curious person. (Fair warning this is a “so\” arBcle with no staBsBcs or compensaBon rules)We are always told that curiosity kills cats. The theory is that it gets cats into trouble MORE...
Enough is Enough. Knowing When to Say When on Compensa)onSomeBmes enough is enough. I had a client go through a surprisingly good experience last week that made me realize the posiBve context of this cliche. A\er several years of being beaten up by insBtuBonal shareholders about equity compensaBon burn rates and usage, they are now in a posiBon to ask for, and get approved, more shares than they have used in the past 3 years. Here’s the interesBng thing, they won’t be asking for it all... Yes, Virginia, there is a company who shows restraint.MORE...
In a Vacuum of Informa)on People Will Use Imagina)onI love talking to employees about their compensaBon plans. It is always easy to see the people who work at companies with effecBve communicaBon programs. Whether the staff likes or dislikes the plans they tend to provide similar details. They generally understand the components of the programs. And they have an idea of what it takes to progress within them, earn something from them or otherwise take advantage of them. If I have to be honest, my favorite employees are at the companies that have a MORE...
What Do Your Employees Really Think About Pay?Last Friday I was in the final stages of ediBng when I came across the exchange of messages below posted on a social networking site. All messages were posted within about an hour of each other.Employee 1:Morgan Stanley, which is the owner of the world's largest brokerage, cut the investment bank's compensaBon pool 2% last year to $7 billion. Morgan Stanley's MORE...
COMPENSATION CAFE
COMPENSATION CAFE
COMPENSATION CAFE
FEBRUARY 14, 2011
FEBRUARY 4, 2011
JANUARY 25, 2011
Stock Op)on Moving Sale!Everyone loves when a business or a family down the street has a moving sale. You have opBons to buy stuff at a discount even if you might not need it. Heck, someBmes you purchase something even if it might be out of fashion by the Bme you finally get around to using it. You convince yourself that the discount jusBfies buying things that you might even have owned and found not to work in the past. Maybe this Bme that type of skirt will look good on you. Maybe this Bme you will lose the weight and be MORE...
Execu)ve Pay and the Emperor's New ClothesI read a recent arBcle by Dan Ariely on how we measure thri\. Mr. Ariely, is the author of “Predictably IrraBonal” and “The Upside of IrraBonality.” 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 less expensive, but sBll good coffee, to show how seemingly reasonable decisions can be influenced by past experience rather than current facts. In the end he quesBons whether some of.MORE...
Dan Walter is the President and CEO of Performensa5on an independent compensa5on consul5ng firm focused on the needs of companies not in the Fortune 1000. Dan’s unique perspec5ve and exper5se includes equity compensa5on, execu5ve compensa5on, performance-‐based pay and talent management issues, Dan is on the board of the Na5onal Center for Employee Ownership, a partner in the ShareComp virtual conferences and the founder of Equity Compensa5on Experts a free networking group. Dan is frequently requested as a dynamic and humorous speaker covering compensa5on and mo5va5on topics. Connect with him on LinkedIn or follow him on TwiNer @performensa5on.
COMPENSATION CAFE JANUARY 5, 2011
All ar)cles authored by Dan WalterPresident and CEO
Performensa)on Consul)ng, LLC514 Precita Ave, Suite 100 San Francisco, CA, 94110415.625.3406 (direct/mobile) | 415.821.9883 (fax)
You Can Self-‐fulfill a Prophecy, Just Ask the Right People!I just read two recent arBcles explaining that nearly every single employable American will be looking for a new job in 2011. Perhaps as many as 98% of all Americans! To tell the truth I was shocked. First, I gnashed my teeth. Then, I pulled my hair. I panicked when I realized what a drain this would be on companies. It seemed as if we were all going to go through the tumultuous year in our lives. Just as I was about to hypervenBlate, I looked at the source of the informaBon.MORE...
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