Red-Hot Thread
"The corporate brand is not only used to improve competitive
positioning and express company aspirations, it can also be a powerful
tool to motivate employees."
|
CFOZone Experts
Opinions and views from expert CFOZone members.
Tag >> Careers/Management
Corporate pension funds continue to become flusher thanks to the surging stock market. The funded status of the typical U.S. corporate pension plan in April rose 0.7 percentage points to 89.2 percent, the eighth consecutive month of improvement, according to monthly statistics published by BNY Mellon Asset Management. The funding ratio for the typical corporate plan has improved 4.9 percentage points since the beginning of the year.
Is the employment picture starting to brighten? We'll get a good reading on Friday when the government releases its April jobs report. Then less reliable ADP report released Wednesday, however, showed that private employers added 179,000 jobs in April, which was below consensus expectations. One potential forward-looking reading does suggest that the unemployment rate will continue to drop.
Janus Capital Group and M.D.C. Holdings are the latest companies to fail to generate majority support for their executive pay practices. Last week, just 40.1 percent of shareholders approved Janus Capital's compensation package at the asset manager's annual meeting. M.D.C. Holdings received only 33.4 percent support in its advisory vote on compensation, according to RiskMetrics.
Bank of America named Bruce Thompson chief financial officer. He replaces Chuck Noski, who will become vice chairman of the banking giant. Thompson will succeed Noski as CFO by the end of the second quarter.
More data about eye-popping increases in CEO pay for 2010. According to Carol Bowie, head of compensation policy development at ISS Governance, the most significant factor in that increase was cash pay. ISS did an early analysis of 600 Russell 3000 companies' CEO pay disclosures where the same CEO was in place in 2009 and 2010. And it found that 81 percent of CEOs received cash incentive pay--short-and long-term payouts--in 2010. That's compared to 70 percent in 2009.
It looks like 2010 was a boom year for CEO compensation. According to a new analysis of proxies conducted by Towers Watson, median total cash compensation increased 17 percent for CEOs last year. This compares with a 3 percent median increase the prior year. To compute cash compensation, the consulting firm includes base salary, as well as annual and discretionary bonus payments.
If you take a look at the compensation tables in the proxies of the Wall Street giants, it is hard to believe it is only two years or so since the global financial meltdown. You would almost think the top executives are running successful hedge funds, given their gargantuan gains. And to think they complained that the brief government involvement in their affairs.
It is the big question facing every company that needs to replace top management or even low level management. Promote from within or reach outside the firm? Well, a new study found that when it comes to hiring chief executive officers at publicly traded companies, shareholders should urge the board to promote from within.
CEOs continued to grow more upbeat about the overall economy and their own company's prospects. According to the results of Business Roundtable's first quarter 2011 CEO Economic Outlook Survey member CEOs estimate real GDP will grow by 2.9 percent in 2011, an increase from the 2.5 percent expected in the fourth quarter of 2010.
Employers, beware. Your overworked employees may not be around much longer. Once they sense the job market has improved, they plan to bolt and let the door close on their immediate boss.
|
|
