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.

The C-suite may  be enjoying a compensation bumper crop, but the same can't said for everyone else. And that could be causing widespread employee preoccupation with money worries--and productivity losses.

In other words, if you have the feeling your employees are distracted, that's because they probably are. And they're worried about finances-their own, not the corporation's.

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.

The investment fund of a major union activist is targeting the pay packages of two major pharmaceutical companies.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the largest public employee and health care workers union in the United States, is recommending that shareholders of both Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vote against the executive compensation proposals at the annual meetings of both companies, which take place on April 28.

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.

How to design executive compensation that improves performance without encouraging unethical behavior?

According to Adam Grant and Jitendra Singh, two management professors at the Wharton School of Management, the answer is to include in the mix a hefty portion of non-financial incentives that have a powerful effect on behavior.

This is why boards of directors-especially compensation committees-are under attack.

When Steve Odland resigned as Office Depot's chairman and CEO last fall, the company's stock surged 9 percent on the same day.

It's all about pay.

When shareholders gather at this year's annual meetings, executive compensation figures to be the number one issue on the proxy. This is partly because the Dodd-Frank Act requires all companies whose annual meetings take place after January 21, 2011 to hold so-called Say on Pay votes on their Compensation Discussion and Analysis (CD&A)-an advisory non-binding up-or-down vote. They also will be required to vote on whether the company should hold future votes annually, bi-annually or tri-annually.

 Does it really make any difference if there are more women on boards? 

 A study from Heidrick & Struggles and WomenCorporateDirectors of 400 directors indicates the answer is "probably", at least if you're talking about attitudes towards a number of important issues.  On the one hand, it found that men and women directors respond in much the same way to some key topics.  At the same time, there are a quite a few notable issues where male and female directors most definitely seem to be on Mars and Venus.