Unions Targeting Executive Pay

No doubt in response to shareholder criticism about executive compensation, companies are examining compensation and benefit packages before their annual meetings this spring. The AFL-CIO labor federation is currently in talks with companies about curbing executive pay packages, according to the ...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 13, 2003

Performance Reviews Get Poor Reviews

When it comes to performance reviews, 52 percent of employees agree on one thing: they do nothing to actually help their on-the-job performance.That’s according to a new survey by business writer Gene C. Mage, who writes the syndicated column “Making It Work.”The report, based on a nationwide sur...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 12, 2003

What Dreams May Come

In last week’s New Yorker, author Hendrik Hertzberg relayed an anecdote in which Secretary of State Colin Powell reportedly remarked, “I sleep like a baby… Every two hours I wake up screaming.”According to a survey released Monday, Powell is not alone.In the poll of more than 1,000 workers by onl...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 11, 2003

Health Costs #1 Benefit Worry, Survey Finds

What are the primary benefit concerns of 2003? It all depends on who you ask.Employers regard the need to control rising health and welfare costs as the top priority for the fourth consecutive year. Meanwhile, employees say retirement and investment issues are the primary benefits concerns in 200...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 11, 2003

Hear What I Say

During the Nineties, when the CFO role grew to encompass such chores as investor relations and IPO road-show presentations, more companies began looking for finance chiefs who were good communicators. Hence, finance chiefs out in the job market needed to project a more outgoing, with-it persona.B...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 10, 2003

The Wrong Stuff

Having spent two years as CFO of EPIX Holdings Corp. before becoming CEO last year, Thomas Taylor knows exactly what he is looking for in a finance chief: someone just like him.It would be a tall order. Taylor was valedictorian of his MBA class at Notre Dame, is a CPA who spent seven years at Pri...

By Russ Banham • Feb. 7, 2003

Old Boys Network: On the Fritz

It’s getting easier for women to find companies where they can succeed. Or at least, that’s the takeaway from this year’s survey by the National Association for Female Executives (NAFE).In the NAFE’s list of “Top 30 Companies for Executive Women,” Avon Products once again took the top spot. That’...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 6, 2003

A Lesson in Public Speaking

Sometimes it’s best to stick to the script.Henry M. Paulson, Jr., chairman and CEO of financial-services firm Goldman Sachs Group proved just that when he discussed the possibility of future layoffs at the firm at a recent investment conference, according to the New York Times. The comments were ...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 5, 2003

Benefits Nearly 40% of Payroll, Study Finds

It’s getting real expensive to provide benefits to employees.The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Monday reported that employee benefits comprised more than a third of company payroll costs in 2001, up slightly from the prior year.Benefit costs averaged 39 percent of total payroll costs among employers s...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 5, 2003

Intervention Needed? FMLA Abused, Says Survey

It’s coming up on the tenth birthday of the Family and Medical Leave Act — and some benefits experts think the act is due for a makeover.The good news for workers, according to a survey by Society for Human Resource Management, is that many companies go beyond the minimum requirements of the law ...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 4, 2003

Boards Getting Creative With Exec Comp

Corporate directors are feeling like they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to executive pay.On one hand, board members are wary of the bad press that revelations of exorbitant pay packages for top executives can invite. What’s more, with Congress outlawing loans by companies...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 3, 2003

Downsizing: Limbo Lower Now

Corporate managers thought that recent cost cuts would push their companies out of the doldrums — or at least boost earnings enough to please shareholders. That hasn’t happened. Is another round of cuts in order?Lawrence Serven, a principal at ButtonwoodLLP.com, a Stamford, Connecticut-based mana...

By Lori Calabro and Lynn Doan • Feb. 1, 2003

Pulling the Plug on Exorbitant Pay

David FitzPatrick might be a tad nervous these days. The new CFO of Tyco International Inc. landed a $21 million pay package just as shareholder activist groups began promising a crackdown on excessive executive pay.In fact, during the coming proxy season, bloated executive pay will take center s...

By Lori Calabro • Feb. 1, 2003

Multiple-Choice Problems

In an effort to encourage diversification in 401(k) plans, companies are continuing to add investment options to their menus. One-third of companies recently surveyed by Hewitt Associates say they’re planning to boost the number of funds they offer this year. Lifestyle funds, fixed-income funds, ...

By Alix Stuart • Feb. 1, 2003

Got a Good Job in the Citi

Deborah Hopkins, new head of corporate strategy at Citigroup, will be a key player in the company’s attempts to recover from the research-analyst debacle at its Salomon Smith Barney unit — if she sticks around.The peripatetic executive was CFO at Boeing for just a year and a half before decamping...

By Joseph McCafferty • Feb. 1, 2003

Out of Work? Start a Company

Ever fantasize about ditching the corporate establishment to start your own business? Former Vital Link Business Systems CFO Steve Peterson took that leap last September, when an investor-led management reshuffling left him out of work. After weeks of job-hunting and soul-probing, the veteran of ...

By Alix Stuart • Feb. 1, 2003

Canned!

As CFO sackings go, Kent Kalkwarf’s firing by Charter Communications was a blindside hit.For months during a grand-jury investigation of Charter’s accounting practices, it was the COO, David Barford, who was under the microscope, having been put on paid leave by the company. CFO Kalkwarf, meanwhi...

By Roy Harris • Feb. 1, 2003

Bitter Medicine

Companies are singing the health-care blues again, thanks to another year of double-digit premium increases.This year’s hike will be particularly stiff — the average company expects health-care costs to rise 14 percent, according to the National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans 2002, by ...

By Joseph McCafferty • Feb. 1, 2003

Feeling Employees’ Pain

You’ve heard it a million times before: A happy and motivated workforce boosts the bottom line.In fact, so important is this concept that the Harvard Business Review dedicated its January issue to the theme of motivating employees. What’s more, it seems every other week a consultant releases a se...

By Lisa Yoon • Jan. 30, 2003

Executives Still Getting Good Severance Pay

According to a new survey by Right Management Consultants, severance pay for top executives remans fairly generous. On average, executives receive four or five weeks per year of service.Half of the companies in the Global Severance Practices Survey, a worldwide survey of nearly 1,500 companies in...

By Lisa Yoon • Jan. 29, 2003

Study: Playing Well With Others Pays

According to a new study from Eckerd College’s Management Development Institute, the way a manager resolves conflict has a lot to do with that manager’s perceived effectiveness as a leader. That, in turn, can alter the manager’s chances of getting promoted.The study looked at 90 male and 82 femal...

By Lisa Yoon • Jan. 28, 2003

If I Only Had a Brain

“Back where I come from, we have universities — seats of great learning — where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts, and with no more brains than you have. But, they have one thing you haven’t got: a diploma!”The Wizard of Oz, just before awarding the...

By Lisa Yoon • Jan. 27, 2003

CFOs Need to Improve Risk Skills, Says Survey

The rising demand from investors and regulators for more financial detail is putting a real strain on companies, which must supply that info. In turn, this internal demand is testing the expertise of CFOs and chief risk officers. Indeed, a recent study by Korn/Ferry International and strategy con...

By Lisa Yoon • Jan. 23, 2003

The High Cost of Pension Losses

Forty percent of 80 mid-sized and large companies surveyed by Deloitte & Touche LLP said their pension expenses will rise by more than 50 percent in 2003.Another 20 percent expect increases of 26 percent to 50 percent. Around 16 percent of the respondents see expenses growing between 11 perce...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 23, 2003

You Shouldn’t Take the Job

Larry Reinhold wasn’t looking for trouble — he was just signing on for his first job as a CFO.In January 2001, however, after only three weeks at Critical Path, he discovered questionable revenue recognition practices at the San Francisco-based Internet messaging company. At Reinhold’s urging, Cr...

By Craig Schneider • Jan. 23, 2003