President Bush: Pay for Performance
President Bush became HR Leader-in-Chief today by touting pay for performance in his State of the Economy speech in New York. Mr. Bush weighed in on executive compensation, board governance…and font size:
America’s businesses have responsibilities here in America. I know you know that. A free and vibrant economy depends on public trust. Shareholders should know what executive compensation packages look like. I appreciate the fact that the SEC has issued new rules to ensure that there is transparency when it comes to executive pay packages. The print ought to be big and understandable. When people analyze their investment, they ought to see loud and clear — they ought to be able to see with certainty the nature of the compensation packages for the people entrusted to run the companies in which they’ve got an investment.
Government should not decide the compensation for America’s corporate executives, but the salaries and bonuses of CEOs should be based on their success at improving their companies and bringing value to their shareholders. America’s corporate boardrooms must step up to their responsibilities. You need to pay attention to the executive compensation packages that you approve. You need to show the world that American businesses are a model of transparency and good corporate governance.
Interesting points made by the President. And hey, here’s a new aspiration for HR: The heck with “a place at the table,” we want a chair in the West Wing.
Dale Dauten on De-Hiring
Dale Dauten, The Corporate Curmudgeon, is one of my favorite columnists. And I just spent seven minutes watching his video called Don’t Fire an Employee Until You Watch This! Super stuff. Dauten talks about “de-hiring” rather than “firing,” constantly upgrading talent while using the rank-and-yank approach to performance management. Great lessons to be learned there, especially if you think the “fire the bottom 10 percent” approach is just a little too glib.
When you’re done watching the video, you can read one of my all-time favorite columns written by anyone, bar none: What the Human Resources Department Won’t Tell You. Over the course of time, I’ve probably quoted The Corporate Curmudgeon’s “bad boss syndrome” to a thousand people. Some ideas have legs. Or I need some new stories.
Technorati Tags: Dale Dauten, performance management
Whole Foods CEO Pay
I am a big admirer of Whole Foods and have written a few times about the company. Somehow, I managed to miss John Mackey’s blog. So when I saw this post titled Compensation at Whole Foods, I was captivated. It’s a letter to employees from the CEO talking in transparent terms about why they decided to increase executive pay multiples:
This will be the third time we have raised our salary cap since we created one about 20 years ago. The original salary cap was set at 8 times the average pay. It was raised to 10 times the average pay in the early 1990’s and raised again to 14 times the average pay in 2000. This increase to 19 times the average pay remains far, far below what the typical Fortune 500 company pays its executives. As you can see from the following chart, the average CEO received 431 times as much as their average employee received in 2004, while the Whole Foods Market CEO (me) received only 14 times the average employee pay in cash compensation.
2000 Bloggers
First movers intrigue me to no end. Tino Buntic’s 2000 Bloggers is one of those ideas. Tino posted the photos of 2000 bloggers across the world, from A-listers to Z-listers. Hey, I even made the list! Here’s his premise:
5 million blogs…
I’d like to showcase all of them, but I’ve settled on just 2000 bloggers.
Bloggers come from all walks of life! Some are SEO experts. Some are writers. Some are sports enthusiasts. Some are affiliate marketers. Some are business professionals. Some are political. ALL HAVE OPINIONS!!!
Some bloggers blog to make money. Some do it for fun.
There are dozens of social networks that bring the blogosphere together, with Technorati and MyBlogLog being two of the biggest. I wanted to bring a whole bunch of bloggers together on one page. 2000 bloggers to be exact!
One of the cool things about social media is the connections. That’s really what we look for in HR, too. We’re always searching to create a conversation — what some call “engagement.” Novel ideas are out there. And creativity counts. Want to see if there’s anything new under the sun? Check out 2000 Bloggers. Do something novel and click on 10 pictures. See if you find something new and interesting. If they are, bookmark them on del.icio.us or in your RSS reader. There are 55 million blogs out there, each with a story to tell. And…you get bonus points if you can find my picture out there!
UPDATE: I posted a 2000 Bloggers page with all the pictures.
Technorati Tags: 2000 Bloggers, creativity
Eats, Plants & Leaves
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. That’s the advice of writer Michael Pollan in his NYT piece Unhappy Meals. You can use this registration-free link to read the entire piece, including his 9-step process for healthy eating. [via BoingBoing] It’s a long article, but every word is worthwhile. If you don’t have much time, read Pages 1, 11 and 12. Want your employees to really get healthier? This is the roadmap.
Photo credit: Adactio
Technorati Tags: Unhappy Meals, eating, health
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