All Posts By Kevin Kuschel
As we hit the midpoint of the 2022 proxy season, shareholders and investors continue to shift focus towards untraditional topics compared to prior year's proxy seasons. At the forefront of these conversations sits ESG (environmental, social, and governance) and human capital management (HCM) matters. Boards are now establishing committees specific to such issues as human rights/diversification, sustainability and environmental as...
Effective compensation programs have a strong circular relationship between measurable goals, tangible performance, and actual payouts. This is true whether the goal or goals are short-term or long-term in nature. But what happens when the lines between goals and performance become blurred? Do the compensation programs themselves cease to carry the same power to influence actions? Or even more concerning,...
Impacts of a global pandemic, volatility in the markets, bankruptcies and consolidation through M&A activity has created a new business landscape… one no industry has completed escaped. The one area this impacts meaningfully is peer selection for compensation peer groups. To be sure, choosing a peer group can be a frustrating necessary task, exacerbated further by a shrinking universe of...
Introduction Over the last 10 months, we have watched many companies across the US begin to shift from a traditional work landscape to a “work from home” environment. The cause? An on-going global pandemic. What appears to be one of the greatest human capital management endeavors in a generation, recent events have prompted remote work opportunities faster than any other...
BUILDING SUCCESS THROUGH TALENT ACQUISITION AND PRESERVATION The importance of employee attraction and retention on overall business success is an often-debated issue. Although two very divergent schools of thought exist — either employees as assets or employees as expenses — everyone agrees on one thing: Employees are necessary to operate a business and employees want to feel valued. It has...
The corporate structure over the past 30 years has been predicated mainly around the regulations necessitated by actions taken by corporations that have ultimately resulted in negative consequences. A constant balancing act of an open-market economy vs. necessary regulation has seen corporations combat the forces of what they can and cannot do. Now, as we endure yet another macro-economic financial...
/ BANKRUPTCY COMPENSATION The concept of excessive executive compensation is a seemingly frequent topic that garners significant reaction regardless of personal viewpoints. The essence of the topic is intended to elicit a moral response, asking us to question fairness in the context of our own situations. Everyone seeks what is fair (not to be confused with equal) believing that a...
In times of crisis, companies are desperate to reduce expenses As the weeks go by, the effects of COVID-19 have entered nearly all aspects of life and business. The month of February marked the first death from the virus on American soil which soon began the series of events that led the country to shut down as a whole. As...
As many of us settle into what has become a new normal, businesses are feeling the wave of negative effects the Coronavirus (COVID-19) has brought to the American economy and are desperately trying to navigate the challenges brought forth by this crisis. For many it has meant salary cuts, furloughed employees and altered every-day business operations. But how should boards...
According to a recent survey by Willis Towers Watson, in mid-February some 15% of participant companies expected material impacts from COVID-19 to persist over the next six months. As we all know, the situation has continued to evolve around the world, injecting increasing levels of uncertainty in the corporate world, sending financial markets into disarray and adding to our worries...
