March 19, 2009
Survey: Executive Pay Decisions Changing Rapidly
– David Swinford, Pearl Meyer & Partners
We just released a survey entitled “Executive Pay in the New Economy,” which includes responses from two time periods: November 2008 and February 2009. Notably, there have been significant changes in the responses in that 3-month period. Among those:
– More than twice as many respondents to the Winter 2009 survey (38.3%) said that the recent financial turmoil would impact their pay-making decisions over the next 6 months, compared with only 16.5% percent of respondents three months earlier
– 28.1% of Winter 2009 respondents said that performance was “well off-target” compared to half as many—14.0% in Fall 2008
– While directors in the Fall 2008 survey tended to be more aggressive on the prospects for changes in executive pay programs than other respondents, Winter 2009 results show directors and executives to be generally like-minded