Human Capital: Page

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    Stock Options Get a Nod from B-Schools

    As the debate continues over executive stock options, the pro-options camp scores a thumbs up from a new study penned by three business school professors.The report, released in September, claims that in the long term, employee stock options (ESO) grants actually do what they’re intended to do in...

    By Lisa Yoon • Dec. 10, 2002
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    Salaries Down, Disgruntlement Up

    “I know I don’t got a lot up there, but what I got sure don’t feel too good.”That was Tatum O’Neal’s reaction after getting kicked in the chest in the 1976 movie The Bad News Bears. But it could also sum up how CFOs feel about being forced to skimp on employee raises.Indeed, it seems employees ar...

    By Lisa Yoon • Dec. 9, 2002
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    The Gorilla Across the Table

    In a divorce, it’s the little ones who get hurt worst.Take the case of Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric. In the middle of a widely reported breakup with estranged wife Jane Beasley Welch, Welch — and his former employer — found themselves facing a public relations nightmare...

    By David Katz • Dec. 9, 2002
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    Companies Target Retiree Benefits

    Increasingly, retiree benefits are under attack.As more and more companies pare the benefits of their current employees, many businesses are also targeting the benefits of their former workers — workers who assumed they had a covenant for life.According to a survey of large U.S. companies by the ...

    By Stephen Taub • Dec. 9, 2002
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    The Most Overpaid CFOs?

    Are CFOs overpaid? And how does a company determine what to pay its chief financial officer?Look at what it shells out for the chief executive. Or at least that’s the conclusion of a study of CFO pay conducted by veteran compensation expert Graef Crystal.Crystal, a self-styled executive-pay gadfl...

    By Stephen Taub • Dec. 6, 2002
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    Gunfight at the Comp Consulting Corral

    (Editor’s note: This is the second story in CFO.com’s spotlight series on compensation committees. To read the feature article, “The Gorilla Across the Table,” click here.)It’s just a short paragraph in small roman type buried at the bottom of the page in the New York Stock Exchange’s new corpora...

    By David Katz • Dec. 6, 2002
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    Rashomon in HR

    If there’s one thing human-resources experts almost unanimously agree on, it’s the importance of employee retention — particularly in a recession. And where there’s talk of retention, the issue of employee morale inevitably comes up. This week, two new studies show that employee morale isn’t exac...

    By Lisa Yoon • Dec. 5, 2002
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    Survey: Net Hiring Picking Up

    As CFO.com reported yesterday, getting in with upper-echelon headhunters, while not impossible, can be tough. For those who prefer other avenues of the job search — or lack the personal connections to get an audience with a top headhunter — a survey released this week by online career-services ce...

    By Lisa Yoon • Dec. 4, 2002
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    How to Get Noticed by Headhunters

    “Don’t call us; we’ll call you.”Ask a big-time headhunter how to get in the running for a plum job and that’s the line you’re likely to hear. And it’s not because executive recruiters are such snobs, either.The fact is, there’s a big misunderstanding about what headhunters actually get paid to do...

    By Lisa Yoon • Dec. 3, 2002
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    Pension Funding Gap Seen Widening in 2003

    So much for the two-month stock market rally.The corporate pension crisis is expected to get much worse in the next year or so as the nearly three-year bear market has forced many companies to make contributions to their defined-benefit plans to cover shortfalls and comply with federal laws that ...

    By Stephen Taub • Dec. 3, 2002
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    Stuff in the Stockings?

    It’s that time again. The holidays, that is. And like a house full of kids ransacking the closets in search of an advance peek at their holiday loot, workplaces buzz with anticipation of the holiday bonus. Two consulting companies released surveys on this year’s bonus trends. The results? Mixed.F...

    By Lisa Yoon • Dec. 2, 2002
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    Send in the Eggheads

    Last winter, as Magnetek Inc. CFO David Reiland was reviewing the structure of the 401(k) program at the Los Angeles-based maker of power controls, he found himself drawn to a plan that would give employees some extraordinary help with their retirement investing. Under the program, created by con...

    By Alix Stuart • Dec. 1, 2002
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    Challenging Convention

    Calling in a professional manager may prevent emotions–or apathy–from dictating the allocation of employees’ nest eggs. But is it any safer to trust asset managers who use the standard theories of investing?For Boston University professor Zvi Bodie, the answer is a resounding no. According to Bod...

    By Alix Stuart • Dec. 1, 2002
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    Return of the Bean Counters

    Three years ago, Greg Cowan was promoted from controller to CFO at professional staffing firm CDI Corp., making the leap that so many accounting professionals dream of: from keeping the books to helping set business strategy. But in November he took what looked like a step back, swapping his CFO ...

    By Alix Stuart • Dec. 1, 2002
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    Liar, Liar

    CFOs do it. CEOs do it. Research analysts do it. Even poets laureate do it. It’s the edu-fib. An edu-fib is a lie on a résumé about one’s educational history, usually used early in a career to enhance professional opportunities. But if that lie is still there when an executive hits the heights of...

    By CFO Editorial Staff • Dec. 1, 2002
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    Executive Credit Crunch

    Newspapers were shocked — shocked — to learn that former WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers had borrowed $408 million, ostensibly to purchase company stock. That discovery, coupled with the disclosure that former Tyco International CEO Dennis Kozlowski allegedly “borrowed” $242 million from Tyco for yach...

    By Andrew Osterland • Dec. 1, 2002
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    Stock Option Overhang Blues

    As the debate over executive pay continues, those in favor of doing away with stock options have new fuel for their fire.A new research report by Watson Wyatt shows that companies with high stock ownership by senior management financially outperform companies with lower executive ownership, as me...

    By Lisa Yoon • Nov. 21, 2002
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    Women CFOs: Respect, Just a Little Bit

    Women CFOs are increasing their ranks — albeit at a snail’s pace. That’s according to this year’s Census of Women Corporate Officers and Top Earners by non-profit research group Catalyst.In 2002, 7.1 percent of the 496 CFOs at America’s 500 largest companies were women, compared with 5.6 percent ...

    By Lisa Yoon • Nov. 20, 2002
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    MBA Still Worth Something

    Is an MBA worth much during an economic slump when many companies are laying off large numbers of employees? Apparently yes.Turns out 88 percent of 1,247 people who graduated with MBAs in 2000 and 2001 are currently employed, and 76 percent are still working for the companies that hired them afte...

    By Stephen Taub • Nov. 19, 2002
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    Finance Salaries: Down the Up Escalator

    The outlook isn’t good for CFO pay in 2003, according to the 2003 Salary Guide released by Accountemps, a finance staffing division of Robert Half International. The annual guide is based on data from placements by Robert Half finance and accounting recruiters.Despite strong gains in salary in re...

    By Lisa Yoon • Nov. 18, 2002
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    At Sun, Outrunning the Bear

    No question about it, Stephen McGowan has a tall task ahead of him. The new finance chief at Sun Microsystems, McGowan takes over the finance department at Sun at a particularly difficult time.The truth is, it’s not necessarily the best moment to be a finance director at any high-profile, large c...

    By Marie Leone • Nov. 15, 2002
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    Following Your Bliss

    Two years ago, as the stock market began reeling on the realization that the dot-com bubble was now bursting, Nancy Milby had an epiphany: She had made a mistake.It wasn’t a mistake made in her job as CFO of a venture-backed healthcare company. As a CPA who had spent the first 16 years of her fin...

    By Lisa Yoon • Nov. 14, 2002
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    Take This Job and Split It

    With the responsibilities being shouldered by CFOs of late, you’d think they all grew up in Smallville.These days, it’s no longer enough for CFOs to raise money, shape strategic planning, and oversee management initiatives. Indeed, with the recent spate of corporate accounting scandals, boards of...

    By Craig Schneider • Nov. 14, 2002
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    What Executives Worry About

    What keeps you up at night? If it’s the constant parade pesky sales people giving you their latest pitches, a new survey for sales executives might offer sweet relief. The survey “How Executives Buy,” released today by organizational training company The Real Learning Co., attempts to help sales ...

    By Lisa Yoon • Nov. 13, 2002
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    Navigating the Bias Trap

    For evidence that corporate scandals have cast accountants as nefarious in the general press, flip open an issue of The New Yorker, where chances are pretty good that the page selected will feature a cartoon depicting accountants as villains. Here’s one: Two Puritan women wearing disapproving exp...

    By Lisa Yoon • Nov. 12, 2002