Incentive Plan Changes Making News

We are on the cusp of the 2019 proxy season. Reporters are getting geared up to review the proxy statements of large, household named, public companies and report what they discover. Ahh, the sweet smell of anticipation! A heady aroma of blood, sweat, tears, and a bit of nervousness?

In any event, reporters got started a bit early this year (and who could really blame them given what companies have already disclosed). There have been a number of stories that look at changes in incentive plans that have been announced by companies so far in 2019:

• Shell–will link high-level employee pay to carbon reduction targets after engaging with shareholder activist Climate Action 100+
• BP— will factor greenhouse gas emission reductions into rewards for 36,000 employees worldwide after engaging with Climate Action 100+
• Chevron— plans to set greenhouse gas emissions targets and tie executive compensation and rank-and-file bonuses to the reductions
• Facebook–plans to incorporate social issue-related metrics into its employee bonus program to reflect updated company goals; none of the factors reportedly will have pre-assigned weightings or monetary values attached to them, instead Committee will use discretion to determine performance.
• Goldman Sachs–announced that as a result of the on-going investigation into the Malaysian investment fund if the investigation reveals information that would have impacted the company’s year-end compensation decisions, the Committee may reduce or clawback the executives’ 2018 year-end equity awards.

All of the above companies are in a similar situation–events outside of their immediate control (shareholder activists or the media) caused them to revise how they will measure compensation. As shareholder activism increases and the notion of what is good for our society under goes a shift as younger folks begin taking over key roles in society, we are likely to see this trend continue.

Consequently, companies should keep a close eye on emerging issues in their industry and the broader market, identifying those that may require changes to their compensation plans and designs, and keep a “work in progress file on how such changes potentially could be made as well as potential implications for the company of both making and not making such changes. For companies with the foresight to do such planning, they will be rewarded with the ability to better respond to changing events more rapidly, instead of floundering for a bit to find the path that best suits the company’s long-term, strategic goals.