Innovation is all well and good. But if it's the lifeblood of your company, you'd better be willing to pay for it by way of hefty compensation for whomever is doing the innovating.

In other words, innovation is expensive.

If you're a CEO, or would like to become one, looks like your best shot at longevity comes down to this: Be nice to the board.

That's one implication of a study done by a Wharton School of Business assistant professor.

Wouldn't it be nice to know whether the CEO or CFO is, well, being less than candid?

Well now there may be a way to tell.

Looks like executives need to start paying more attention to the nuances of employee social media activity. And that should go for finance executives, as much as any other top manager in a company.

How come? The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently filed a complaint against an ambulance company, American Medical Response of Connecticut, saying the firm illegally fired an employee for comments she made on Facebook. Seems the woman's supervisor had asked her to prepare an investigative report about a customer complaint concerning her work, according to an NLRB press release . When the employee asked for union representation, her request was denied, and the employee later posted negative remarks about the supervisor on her Facebook page. That, in turn, inspired further negative responses from her friends.

Here's one thing you don't have to worry about: whether your employees care a great deal about getting a raise.  Looks like they're not all that focused on their pay, as long as they can keep their job.

A recent  study asking employees to rate contributors to job satisfaction conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management found that compensation dropped to number five for the first time since the organization started doing the survey eight years ago. It was number three on the list last year.

A great many employers don't give their employees paid sick leave--and that not only leads to lower morale and higher health-care costs, but it also creates a potent political issue.

About four out of every ten workers in the private sector receive no paid sick days at all, according to a study from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. And some 23 percent of respondents have lost a job or been told they would get fired for taking time off due to personal or family illness.

Seems we're seeing tepid indications of a pick up in hiring. For one thing, the Bureau of Labor Statistics just announced an increase in 162,000 nonfarm jobs in March and that the unemployment rate is holding steady.  What 's more,  there are also signs of more hiring going on among very small businesses, those with under 20 employees.

That last point could be really good news, because employment among such companies is supposed to be a leading indicator of recovery, since they tend to increase hiring before  more bureaucratic and less-nimble bigger firms do.