March 12, 2019
Pay Ratio – Year 2: Sample “Median Employee” Disclosures
– Liz Dunshee
One of the most frequent questions we get about this year’s pay ratio disclosure is, “How much detail is necessary if you’re not rerunning the ‘median employee’ calculation?” In other words, you’re either using the same median employee – or one of the alternates – that you identified last year. A timely blog from Stinson Leonard Street’s Steve Quinlivan provides examples from four recent filers.
You’ll see that the companies didn’t get too elaborate. All of them basically parrot Instruction 2 to Item 402(u) – i.e. they say they used the same median employee (or an alternate) since there was no change in the employee population or employee compensation arrangements that they believed would significantly change the pay ratio disclosure. And since Steve notes in this blog that he’s found zero Corp Fin comments so far on pay ratio disclosures, that’s probably just fine.