Searching Pondering Equity-Based Long-Term Incentive Plans on page 11

Toward the latter, bonuses should not be biased based on protected characteristics such as gender, national origin, age, race, religion, pregnancy, disability or genetic information, but they can be based on non-protected characteristics such as job classification, tenure, contribution, merit production, education, training or experience.

Access a related Workspan Daily article on this subject: ;Mentoring and Reverse Mentoring: Two Sides of a Valuable Coin; While traditional mentoring is a great tool that offers long-term career guidance and support from a successful leader, skills-based mentoring differs in focus by targeting a specific skill to learn or improve upon in a shorter time period.

;Lack of alignment with strategic initiatives, such as cross-selling, upselling, or customer retention, which can affect the long-term growth and profitability of the company.; To overcome these challenges, many companies switch from a commission plan to a bonus formula plan, which pays salespeople a fixed percentage of their quota attainment, regardless of how much they sell.

Though the administration system becomes a foundational component of how an equity program will function for employees in a public company environment, many organizations approach system selection solely based on familiarity or peer recommendations rather than a structured evaluation of long-term needs.

Workspan Magazine April-May 2026 In this issue: Culture strategies and audits; a co-CHRO leadership model; job descriptions; fortifying compensation management; employee motivation, retention and promotion; long-term incentive plans; and more.

The current race for talent has created pay inequities between newly hired and long-term experienced employees and between subordinates and their supervisors.

Building the Right Compensation Package In addition to the standard salary and performance bonuses, Canavan said the building blocks should be: retention incentives, which organizations can address through real or “phantom equity” (a type of compensation award that references equity, but does not entitle the recipient to actual ownership in a company); a long-term cash bonus plan; or split-dollar life plan, which allows the sharing of the cost of a premium for a permanent life insurance policy.

The legislation also permanently exempts vaccine incentives provided during a public health emergency from the definition of “compensation,” including both monetary and nonmonetary incentives, such as additional paid time off.

Merit Matrix: Budget Distribution Projection Save A structured approach to merit increase planning is essential to create consistent, clear merit increase decisions.

The unadjusted pay gap is partially a result of pay equity but even more so, it’s a result of opportunity equity, which includes promotion equity, retention equity and performance equity.