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The American dream has turned into a fantasy for many people living in the U.S.
At the heart of the national ethos is the belief that anyone can achieve a happy life through hard work and perseverance. This was often symbolized by raising a family in a large house surrounded by a white-picket fence with two cars in the driveway. READ MORE
Earning a good income is one of the best ways to set yourself up for financial success. After all, the more money you make, the easier it will be to invest in a brokerage account, grow your bank account balance, and cover your spending without worrying about debt.
Unfortunately, many people don't take a crucial step necessary to earn the highest salary possible: negotiating a raise. One survey by Salary.com revealed just 37% of people always negotiate their pay when getting hired and revealed that only 44% of people have ever asked for a raise during their periodic performance reviews at work. READ MORE
As sweeping rounds of layoffs rock the tech, media and finance industries in 2024, some video game fans are thinking about former Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata.
Iwata ran the Kyoto, Japan-based video game company from 2002 until his death in 2015. In 2013, Nintendo released the Wii U console as a successor to the mega-popular Wii. It was a commercial failure, pushing the company into years of losses. READ MORE
At 25, Kimi Kaneshina isn't where she thought she would be in her career. After a year working as a product manager in Southern California, she was laid off in June. The job was great, but the experience of getting axed shifted her priorities. Now, on the job hunt, she isn't messing around.
Instead of worrying about company culture or whether the job sounds exciting, the first thing Kaneshina looks for when job searching is the salary. "Right now there's this whole salary-transparency movement. So a lot of the roles I apply to I know about the pay right off the bat," she said. Once satisfied with the pay range, Kaneshina digs into the company — are they doing work she has experience with? Then she checks whether the opening provides room for growth — how long until she could get a promotion? For her to apply, all three factors have to line up. READ MORE
The world is leaning toward sustainable businesses and organisations are responding by reviewing their operations to be considered responsible. There is room for all businesses to truly embrace the concept of ‘doing well by doing good’ and incorporating Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles if they truly want to thrive, with a view to recognising various stakeholders and not only shareholders.
Under the social component of ESG, which delves into the impact an organisation has on people issues relating to employee training, compensation, diversity and inclusion, health and safety standards are of important consideration. For companies that need to drive sustainability in their businesses, executive compensation can be used as a tool to achieve this. READ MORE
When a business is considering a sale in the near (or even more distant) future, an accurate business valuation is essential.
Without effectively calculating and understanding the valuation of the business, you risk undervaluation of the company and massive loss of negotiation power. When considering a merger, acquisition, or outright sale of a business, it’s key to understand what owner compensation is, why it’s important to get an accurate calculation, and how that calculation will impact the overall business valuation. READ MORE
On February 1, 2024, the California Civil Rights Department (CRD), the agency responsible for administering California’s pay data collection, issued updated guidance for the 2023 California pay data reports that are due May 8, 2024. The new guidance largely maintains the 2022 pay reporting process with a few updates. The 2023 reporting process will again include the labor contractor employee reports which were required for the first time during the 2022 reporting year. READ MORE
Amazon.com Inc. allegedly retaliated against three female employees — including firing one and placing another on a performance plan — after they sued the company for discrimination, the plaintiffs said in new court papers.
In an amended complaint filed Friday, Caroline Wilmuth, Katherine Schomer and Erin Combs alleged Amazon has “continued to discriminate and retaliate against” them since the original lawsuit was filed in November. Wilmuth has been terminated, Schomer was put on a performance plan, and Combs has resigned. They all belonged to the company’s communications and public relations group and focused on research and corporate reputation issues. READ MORE
When it comes to pay equity, Illinois has some of the most stringent laws in the United States. Along with California, it is the only state to require pay data reporting. As the Illinois Equal Pay Certificate Deadline of March 24, 2024 draws near, here’s what employers need to know. As we also highlight, a major requirement is compliance with the state’s Equal Pay Act of 2003. READ MORE
Entrepreneurs and those who work with entrepreneurs know that most do not pay themselves the salary that they would have to pay someone else to do the same work.
The familiar trope of a founder who does not take a salary for the first three years is well known, and even respected as a sacrifice to get a new venture started. This may work well for entrepreneurs with a financial safety net, or those who can reasonably stay on a friend’s couch or otherwise avoid expenses for those years. It does not work for entrepreneurs in demanding financial situations at the outset. READ MORE
One of the benefits of being an S Corporation owner is having the ability to significantly reduce your payroll taxes. Yes, that’s right. By meticulously examining your own salary and profit distributions, you could potentially carve out thousands from your tax bill over the next year. Here's how. READ MORE
It’s never been easier to see how much a job will pay before you go into an interview.
More than a dozen states, cities, counties and Washington, D.C. have passed pay disclosure laws, where employers of a certain size are required to list the salary range of an open job. And more than 1 in 4 workers in the U.S. now lives in a place where they’re entitled to see pay ranges on job ads.
But once you have that information, how can you actually leverage pay ranges to negotiate a job offer? READ MORE
An industry-leading benchmark study of non-qualified deferred compensation (NQDC) plans finds that, while recruitment and retention continue to be the top goal for offering NQDC plans, other reasons for doing so are rising quickly in the ranks.
Though these plans are still primarily used to differentiate the compensation package for top talent, plan sponsors are showing an increased focus on education and retirement readiness, according to the Plan Sponsor Council of America’s (PSCA) 2023 NQDC Plan Survey. READ MORE
Should a Delaware judge’s decision to deny Tesla CEO Elon Musk a $55 billion compensation package stand, it could establish a troubling precedent. The potential fallout might compromise the efficacy of performance pay plans, which are integral for aligning employees’ incentives with organizational goals.
A cornerstone of any performance pay plan is trust, specifically the assurance that conditions and expectations won’t change after the fact. But Delaware Chancery Court Chief Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick appears to challenge this principle in her 200-page ruling. Musk has a 30-day window to appeal. READ MORE
Throughout the relevant period, Cloopen didn’t have adequate internal accounting controls and company policies and procedures in place to ensure that revenues from sales transactions were accurately recorded and reported in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, the SEC found.
The company was charged with violating antifraud provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as well as reporting, recordkeeping, and internal controls provisions of federal securities laws, according to the order. READ MORE
The blockbuster decision rescinding Elon Musk’s nearly $56 billion compensation plan at Tesla Inc. relates to an extraordinary amount of consideration paid to a superstar, billionaire CEO. But the case also offers important lessons for boards and compensation committees beyond the specific context.
In Tornetta v. Musk, the Delaware Court of Chancery issued a post-trial decision Jan. 30 ruling that the directors of Tesla breached their fiduciary duties when, in 2018, they adopted a $55.8 billion 10-year equity-based compensation plan for Musk, Tesla’s CEO. The plan was 250 times larger than the contemporaneous median peer compensation plan and over 33 times larger than the plan’s closest comparison (Musk’s prior compensation plan). READ MORE
Process still matters. That’s the main takeaway from the Delaware Court of Chancery’s 200-page opinion striking down Tesla’s 2018 incentive package awarded to Elon Musk. The court rescinded the incentive package mainly because Musk was found to control Tesla and the process, the directors authorizing the package were not independent and the stockholder vote approving it was not properly informed. The ruling is a stark reminder of the importance of both director independence and an informed stockholder vote when transacting with a control stockholder. READ MORE
Just a week after Elon Musk’s $55 billion Tesla payday was struck down by a Delaware judge, a New York court dismissed a challenge to Apple CEO Tim Cook’s compensation package, which clocked in at under $100 million. Some coincidence.
At face value, the two cases seem to have a lot in common. Both were shareholder suits waged against some of the highest-paid superstar tech CEOs in the world. And both were filed amid a backdrop of increased public scrutiny over executive compensation in recent years, which is near all-time highs across S&P 500 companies. READ MORE
Which tech roles pay the most? Dice’s latest edition of the Tech Salary Report breaks down which types of engineers, managers, and other specialists earn more than the average tech professional.
As with past years, the top tech occupations by salary had one big thing in common: they were either leadership positions (CEO, CIO, CTO) or tasked with guiding companies through big projects and digital transformation (solutions architect, principal software engineer, program analyst). In other words, companies are still willing to pay top dollar to tech professionals who can use their combination of technical and soft skills to guide teams in driving significant change. Here’s the breakdown from the Report: READ MORE
No CEO of a publicly traded U.S. company has ever been paid this much for one year’s work, according to Equilar, which tracks corporate leadership data. Pay for the 10 highest-paid executives, including Google’s Sundar Pichai and Apple’s Tim Cook, reportedly maxed out at around $250 million in 2022. READ MORE