Compensation & Benefits

Receiving an unexpected holiday bonus can put a smile on anyone's face - especially in the current climate. But why do some employees choose to spend their bonus immediately while others save this money for the future?

The first thing Clive Palmer did when he bought a loss-making Australian nickel refinery in July 2009 was to raise the of pay of its employees and then ask them how to run the business. The results have been impressive – and so too Clive Palmer's generosity in return.

Despite average pay increases not breaking the three per cent barrier, the directors of Britain's 100 largest companies enjoyed a 55 per cent rise in total earnings over the last year.

After almost two years of austerity, there are signs that the great US pay freeze could be finally be thawing, with three-quarters of the employers that froze pay expecting to change their policy by the end of 2010.

The British economy may still be in the doldrums, but that doesn't seem to be having any effect on size of the bonuses paid to the country's top executives.

Despite the recession, CEOs continue to pay themselves vast sums while expecting others to suffer - with those CEOs who slashed their workforces the deepest earning the most. As a new report puts it, "CEOs laid off thousands while raking in millions."

The effectiveness of stock options as part of a reward package has became something of an article of faith in the tech sector. But is there any evidence to back this up?

Flexible working is the most valued benefit for employees, proving far more popular than material perks such as bonuses, according to a new survey carried out in the UK by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

One of the ironic twists of the economic meltdown is that the very issues HR leaders have been voicing for decades are now the hot topics for CEOs and boards across all industries. That's good for HR - but it also means it needs to raise its game.

Capitalism has been tested beyond its limits by completely false and inherently risky assumptions. Globalisation transpired to be a trap and a delusion. What looked like a dead cert for the world economy became a sure nightmare.

Wall Street and the City of London will beg to differ, but a Dutch business school says that the need to hand out vast bonuses within the banking world is a "self-created myth".

What have organisations learnt from the economic crisis about getting the best out of their people? Two contrasting examples suggest that while some have learned a lot, others are stuck in the same old rut.

CEOs the world over are confident that the worst of the recession has passed and that their businesses – and their headcounts – will grow during 2010. But what lessons have they learned from the crisis?

For the first time in ten years, the bosses of the UK's largest companies enjoyed pay rises less than those of the average British worker in 2009.

It's often said that money doesn't bring happiness. But the truth could be more complicated, according to researchers at University of Toronto and Stanford University.

Between 2007 and 2008, the US stock market fell by 37 per cent and 2.6 million American jobs disappeared. But amid the economic chaos, one group has remained immune from the pain. For America's CEOs, the gravy train has just kept on flowing.

To those who might question the value of a college degree, please let me encourage you to "go for it." If you still don't think it's worth it, perhaps a few figures might persuade you otherwise.

Reward for decision-makers has always been determined by vested interest. It obviously suits the men and women themselves to be paid enormous sums, irrespective of any rationale. But what can we do about it?

Assuming the economic recovery does not get blown off course, most American managers could be looking forward to pay rises and bonuses again next year.

Rather than encouraging executives to work harder, performance-related pay may actually have the opposite effect. So isn't it time for a wholesale rethink?

I've been following the healthcare reform debate in the United States from afar with great interest. Of all the arguments for and against, one voice has been particularly silent: that of management, such as CEOs, HR, CFOs, etc.

In the US, where health care access is tied to your ability to stay employed in troubles times, life for many people is looking more and more like the TV show Survivor.

Companies need to get more imaginative if they are going to take the poison out of the debate over executive pay, perhaps by putting bonuses into locked accounts that only pay out if long-term targets are met.

Executive pay and remuneration programmes have been slammed for encouraging the excessive risk-taking that brought the world economy to its knees

Amid all the talk of austerity, there has been precious little evidence of belt-tightening among Britain's top bosses over the past year, despite the value of their companies falling by a third.

More and more managers are seeing their wages being squeezed as firms direct scarce resources to rewarding sales staff or others who bring in revenue.

Employers are still in a tight financial corner when it comes to offering pay rises or bonuses, meaning managers are having to think more creatively about how they keep their employees engaged and happy.

It's crashingly unfair of course, but if you have good looks as well as a good brain you are far more likely to be at the top of your pay scale.

Despite the financial meltdown, many companies continue to claim that huge salaries and bonuses are essential to attracting and retaining talent. But the evidence suggests otherwise. Not only are people are not driven primarily by money, but the power of money can be deeply counter-productive.

Unless you live on another planet, or don't have a bank account, it's hard to miss what's been going on with AIG. In fact, everyone else seems to have their "expert" opinion on what went wrong and why, so there's no need for me to add to the chorus.

The message may not yet have got through to an angry public, but many British and American boardrooms have been scrambling over the past few weeks to freeze executive pay and cap or slash bonuses.

The excesses of executive pay that we have seen over the past few years were driven as much by shareholder expectation as by the need to attract top talent, a new study has suggested.

As a yank in France, it's been interesting to notice differences between here and home both culturally and professionally. And I always love reading ill-informed comments about how bad it is for the US to turn into France under the new leadership in America.

Boardrooms commonly commit seven basic sins when it comes to deciding how to reward top executives, errors that can seriously damage a hard-earned reputation.

As the crumbling economy piles pressure on the bottom line, more and more US employers are considering scrapping their employee healthcare and insurance programmes.

President Obama's tough new caps on executive pay may only apply to firms that have been bailed out by the government but it'll be a brave CEO who tries to argue that its effects will not ripple across the wider economy.

Barack Obama is calling Wall Street bonuses "shameful" and UK politicians want to force companies to state the difference between their highest and lowest earners. But is this approach really how to get the best out of people?

If you're to believe the Miami Herald, fair pay legislation is bad news for companies that are already struggling in an unfriendly business climate (read: recession).

How boardrooms balance their executive pay over the coming year could be the difference between surviving or succumbing to the economic storm, according to new UK research.

Once they break through the glass ceiling, female managers progress just as fast as their male colleagues and receive higher compensation packages. The tricky part is breaking through in the first place.

In a recession, it is easy to wield the axe without thinking through the consequences. So before you do something you regret later, why not read this list of wyas you can keep a lid on your compensation costs.

You might have thought that after the disaster they have unleashed, the coming year will be one of hair-shirts and lower pay for the big banks. But you'd be wrong.

For any manager who actually got a bonus this year, the best advice is probably "don't spend it all at once, because it may be the last one you get for sometime".

If you are unfortunate enough to be asked - or forced – to accept a pay cut, there are several things you need to get straight with your boss as soon as possible.

American employees of whatever level or seniority get the least generous redundancy payoffs in the world.

Companies are beginning to realise they can no longer get away with paying vast sums to their CEOs irrespective of their performance.

The Singapore government has done the unthinkable and cut the pay of its senior civil servants and politicians by up to 19 perent in response to the global recession.

What gets rewarded usually gets done. So, when CEOs earn more than 364 times the pay of the average worker, it's only natural they will focus almost exclusively on short term, bottom-line results. There has to be a better way. So what is the appropriate way to pay a CEO?

Do good-looking people earn more money than average and below average-looking people? A raft of evidence suggests that they do.

Some companies are responding to the recession by asking staff to take unpaid holidays. Of course, it's the lowest-paid who will suffer most from this, not their well-fed bosses.

Your pension may be shot and gas, health and food bills are all rising, but if you think you might get a pay rise to cover it next year, you'd better think again.

It's an argument unlikely to win many friends among equality campaigners, but men earn more money than women not because of discrimination, but because they make different lifestyle choices.

Robert Heller explains why the Second Great Crash is different from the First but all too similar to lesser crashes in between – and why it was completely avoidable.

Governments around the world may now be talking tough about curbing executive pay, but the reality is that there has been precious little evidence of restraint at the very top over the past year.

In the wake of the financial meltdown, performance-related bonuses are hardly flavour of the month in Main Street America. But now they have been found to be gender and racially biased, too.

Despite the widespread anger about Wall Street's failures, stamping down hard on executive pay may be exactly the opposite of what the U.S economy needs right now.

Amid the chaos on the financial markets, here's a real surprise. AIG's just-departed Chief Executive Robert Willumstad, who was replaced as part of the rescue of the insurance giant, has rejected a $22 million severance payment.

Peter Cappelli director of the Center for Human Resources at the Wharton School of Business, argues that rewards for individual performance are no substitute for good employee management.

The global economic slowdown may be putting the brakes on executive pay, but there is still a huge gap between the super-wealthy boardroom elite and the rest.

Downturn or not, the maxim for an increasing number of companies when it comes to attracting and retaining their top executives is, if you're good, you're worth it.