This document summarizes a discussion on reconstructing executive incentives. It outlines institutional shareholder preferences for limiting dilution from share plans and a focus on total shareholder return (TSR) as a performance metric. However, TSR alone may not incentivize long-term thinking. The document also introduces the concept of "Conscious Compensation" which considers a broader set of stakeholders beyond just shareholders. It provides examples of incentive plans that incorporate metrics related to operational excellence, customer value, employee safety, and environmental leadership. While a step in the right direction, the document notes there is still work to be done in areas like rebalancing fixed and variable pay and improving goal setting and measurement.
Corporate Social Responsibility And Corporate Ethics Essay
Reconstruction of Executive Incentives Davos 2014
1. The Reconstruction of Executive
Incentives: A Discussion
Davos 2014
15th Global Employee Equity Forum
06 February 2014
Fred Whittlesey
Compensation Venture Group, Inc.
+1 206.780.5547
www.compensationventuregroup.com
fred@compensationventuregroup.com
Blog: payandperformance.blogspot.com
2. The Organization
Equity Interests Content and Education Roles
Online Content
Pay and Performance: The Compensation Blog
Conscious Compensation: The Impact Compensation Blog
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Effective Equity: The Equity Compensation Blog
Executive
and
Equity
Compensation
Consulting
3. Our Discussion Today
Institutional shareholder design preferences
Dilution limits and employee ownership
What’s wrong with the “S” in TSR
Shareholder-Driven vs. Multi-Stakeholder program design
Conscious Compensation® and executive incentives
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4. Buzzwords
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Sustainability
ESG (Environment, Social, Governance)
Social Impact
Triple Bottom Line
Conscious Capitalism®
Responsible Investing
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5. Institutional Shareholder Design Preferences
Major Players
World’s largest sovereign and public worker pension funds
World’s largest mutual fund companies
Insurance companies
Corporate pension funds
Their advisers
ISS
Glass Lewis
GMI
Their views…
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6. Institutional Shareholder Design Preferences
Dilution from Share Plans
Generalized standards (10%/15%)
Industry-based caps
Comparison to top quartile performers (ISS)
Share Plan Design (for Executives)
Performance conditions
TSR focus
Alternative performance measures
Resistance to ESG measures
Dislike of discretion and subjectivity
Short timeframes (1-3-5 years)
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7. Institutional Shareholder Design Preferences
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Executive
Pay
Employee
Equity
ESG
Dilution from
share plans
Share program design
Alternative
performance
measures
CC®
8. Dilution Limits and Employee Ownership
Industry-based caps
Ignore total compensation philosophy
Drives reduction in participation
Incents gaming of valuation (e.g., shorter option term)
Say-on-Pay Impact
Punishes all-employee pools for CEO pay vs. TSR and
broad industry fluctuations
(US) Forcing extensive disclosures for share pool additions
Allowances for all-employee plans
Uneven treatment of dilution from a share
Prohibits individual differentiation on performance
Typically limits use at higher organization levels
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9. TSR: How We Got Here
Investor and proxy adviser desire for performance features
Board/Committee difficulty in goal-setting
Increased market and economic volatility
“Prevalence” effect of peer groups and survey data (Davos 2012)
“Ensures alignment with shareholders”
Embedded in “pay-for-performance” metrics
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10. What’s Wrong with the “S” in TSR
Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever
"I don't think our fiduciary duty is to put shareholders first. I
say the opposite. What we firmly believe is that if we focus our
company on improving the lives of the world's citizens and
come up with genuine sustainable solutions, we are more in
synch with consumers and society and ultimately this will
result in good shareholder returns.”
“Big Money Is Moving To Socially Responsible Investing”
“…two of California’s largest pension funds (CalPERs &
CalSTRs) have recently made environmental, social and
governance (ESG) issues a major theme to their investment
process.”
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11. What’s Wrong with the “S” in TSR
ISS position
Voting guidelines: 3-year and 5-year TSR vs. peers
Changes for 2014: Elimination of 1-year TSR
Shareholder Primacy argument
Shareholders are not owners
Stakeholder set is broad and diverse
Shareholder timeframes are diverse
Pension and insurance: decades
Mutual funds: calendar quarter and year
Traders: milliseconds (over 50% of trading volume in US)
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12. What’s Wrong with the “S” in TSR
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Stakeholder Group Tactics for Maximizing TSR
Shareholders Earnings “management”; share
repurchases; special dividends
Bondholders/Lenders Restructuring of terms; threat of
bankruptcy; risky business strategies
Employees Layoffs; reduced staffing; benefits
reductions
Customers Price increases; reduction of product choice;
quality compromises
Suppliers Pricing pressure; stringent terms (location,
shipment, payment)
Community Reduction in charitable contributions;
inflexible employee work arrangements
Environment Pollution; excessive consumption of
resources; cheap sources of energy (coal)
13. Conscious Compensation®
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Traditional
Capitalist
Compensation
Conscious
Compensation®
Concepts
Socially/Politically
Correct
Compensation
• Base salary
• Merit-based salary increases
• Annual incentive
• Primarily financial metrics
• Stock-based compensation
focused on executives
• Graded annual vesting
• Increasing cost to employees
for benefits
• Primarily self-funded
retirement - 401(k) with match
• Executive supplemental
benefits and perks
• Top-down performance review
• CEO pay capped at
multiple of lowest paid or
median worker
• Living wage levels
• Employer payment of all
benefits costs
• Liberal paid time off
• Employer-funded pension
• Employee profit-sharing
• Employee equity
participation
• Employee ownership
• Length of service/ seniority
as basis for pay increases
• Peer (internal 360°) review
• Base rate
• No individual increases
• No annual incentives for
financial performance
• Periodic distributions linked
to strategic achievements
• Links to stakeholder
benefits
• Stakeholder-driven metrics
• Stock-based compensation
for all employees
• Interim liquidity for equity
• Same benefits and perks for
all employees
• Total compensation value
equivalence by level
• External 360° reviews
14. The Reconstruction of Executive Incentives: STI Example
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2012
Corporate
Goal
%
Weight
Key
Performance
Indicator
Threshold Target Maximum Actual % Payout
Operational
Excellence
15% System Average
Interruption
Duration Index
86-90 80-85 75-79 78 150%
15% Unplanned
Outage Rage
(UOR)
7.4 6.4 5.4 5.4 150%
Value to the
Customer
15% Public Safety
Index
50 100 150 135 135%
15% Customer Value
(Survey Rating)
80-82% 83-
85%
86-88% 85% 100%
Employee
Safety and
Engagement
15% OSHA Recordable
Event Rate
1.90 1.55 1.28 1.47 150%
5% Employee
Engagement
(Survey Rating)
70 80 90 80 100%
Environmenta
l Leadership
20% Demand-Side
Management
(GWh)
775 814 853 973 150%
Source: Annual Proxy Statement, Xcel Energy, 2013
Uniform step-ups in performance levels
15. The Reconstruction of Executive Incentives: LTI Example
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Grant Type %
Weight
Performance Measure Threshold Target Maximum
Performance Units
(60%)
67% EPS Growth 12% 15% 18%
33% Clean Energy-Competitive
Price: Retail Average Rate
vs. Peers
35th
percentile
50th
percentile
75th
percentile
Performance
Shares (40%)
100% 3-year Relative TSR vs.
Peers (n = 50)
35th
percentile
50th
percentile
75th
percentile
Source: Annual Proxy Statement, Xcel Energy, 2013
Max payout at
75th percentile
performance
16. More Work to Be Done
Base/STI/LTI mix
Goal-setting
Degree of difficulty
Number of measures
Minimum weight
Subjective measurement/discretion
Mix of guaranteed forms of pay
Base salary
SERP
Severance/golden parachute
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17. Discussion
US vs. Europe
Shareholder vs. Stakeholder
Performance Metrics
Annual Cycle
Your Issues and Questions
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