Shareholders rejecting fewer pay packages this year — report

Shareholders voted their shares on average 91% to ratify executive compensation in advisory say-on-pay voting so far this proxy season, said a Willis Towers Watson report released Wednesday, reflecting 1,501 companies in the Russell 3000 stock index from Jan. 1 through June 3.

At 24, or 1.6%, of the companies, a majority rejected the pay packages in the non-binding voting.

By contrast, in all of last year, 61, or 2.8%, of the companies failed to receive a majority vote in support of the executive pay, although overall shareholders also approved pay at a 91% average level, based on 2,143 companies in the Russell 3000 reporting results.

“We look at changes in support year-over-year that might indicate some level of concern,” said Brian Myers, executive compensation consultant at Willis Towers Watson, in an interview. Since the beginning of the say-on-pay voting requirement in 2011, “the trend … in support has been around 90%,” Mr. Myers said. “I don’t think there are any surprises.”

BY BARRY B. BURR | JUNE 8, 2016 3:31 PM | UPDATED 3:35 PM, pENSIONS & INVESTMENTS

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How new OT laws affect compensation for recent grads, employers

This will affect many lower level food service and hospitality management positions classified as exempt under the FLSA, says Kager. If the positions are to remain exempt, employers will need to raise compensation to the new minimum. This alternative may be appropriate for jobs that will be required to work substantial overtime. If a compensation increase to the new minimum is not feasible, employers will reclassify the positions as non-exempt and be required to pay overtime for hours worked over 40 in a week.

Deciding the appropriate action will entail a comparison of the two alternatives based on historic hours worked. This could have an additional effect on employees.

“There may be psychological issues to consider if employees have their positions changed from exempt to non-exempt, requiring good communication about the change,” says Kager. “This could be considered by some employees as a demotion.”

College Recruiter, June 03, 2016 by Matt Krumrie

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200 Highest-Paid CEOs 2016

he New York Times recently published its coverage of the annual Equilar 200 study, which analyzes the highest-paid CEOs at U.S. public companies*. The 2016 Equilar 200 marks the 10th consecutive year of a partnership with The New York Times to deliver data on top-paid executives. 

The introductory page of this feature shows the Top 10 highest-paid CEOs. Below that, there is a link to the full list of the 200 highest-paid CEOs in an interactive chart that allows you to sort by pay, change in compensation year over year, company revenue and total shareholder return (TSR) to see how pay aligns with company performance and shareholder return. You may also download that information in an Excel sheet by filling out the form to your right.

EQUILAR, The New York Times, May 27, 2016

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CEOs who earn their keep... and those who don't

Executive pay has become an issue that increasingly dominates political discourse, corporate boardrooms and annual shareholder meetings.

Boards of directors say they pay executives for performance, tying benchmarks such as earnings to both short-term incentives (usually cash bonuses) and long-term incentives (like stock and option awards).

Shareholders don’t always buy it. About 3 percent of the Russell 3000 companies — an index that measures the performance of the largest 3,000 publicly held U.S. companies based on total market capitalization — failed to win approval of advisory “say on pay” votes both this year and last year, said Joe Kager, managing consultant at The Poe Group Inc. in Tampa. “The message shareholders are sending is there is misalignment of pay for performance,” Kager said.

Tampa Bay Business Journal
May 27, 2016, 6:00am EDT
Margie Manning and Chris Erickson

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Defining and Delimiting the Exemptions for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Outside Sales and Computer Employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act

On May 18, 2016, President Obama and Secretary Perez announced the publication of the Department of Labor’s final rule updating the overtime regulations, which will automatically extend overtime pay protections to over 4 million workers within the first year of implementation. This long-awaited update will result in a meaningful boost to many workers’ wallets, and will go a long way toward realizing President Obama’s commitment to ensuring every worker is compensated fairly for their hard work.

U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division (WHD), Final Rule: Overtime

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Opinion: Tesla’s Elon Musk is doing for executive compensation what he did for electric cars

It’s hard to think of a move that a corporation could make that should win the simultaneous applause of investors, Bernie Sanders and the ghost of neoconservative thinker Irving Kristol, whose “Two Cheers for Capitalism” was as aware of the limits of free enterprise as a modern right-winger can be.

But Tesla Motors Inc.’s TSLA, +1.91% compensation plan for CEO Elon Musk is a good one for the company’s shareholders and workers. The Musk That Roars stands to get $1.6 billion worth of stock options by 2022. But the plan so brilliantly balances Musk’s incentives to do well and do good that it’s Ben & Jerry’s Vermont-style corporate governance — with zeroes on top.

MarketWatch, Published: Apr 25, 2016 9:52 a.m. ET By TIM MULLANEY

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EMC Vs. Dell Top Executive Compensation: How Do They Compare?

Dell and EMC executives talk a lot about how well the two companies will fit together once their proposed merger is finalized, but there is one area where things don't really line up: executive pay.

EMC's top executives make vastly more than privately held Dell's. Being publicly traded makes a big difference -- EMC execs get millions in stock awards as part of their pay. The company detailed the 2015 pay packages of top executives recently in its annual proxy filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

CRN, byMatt Brownon April 18, 2016, 3:17 pm

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