Searching Pondering Equity-Based Long-Term Incentive Plans on page 23

The 2026 State of Incentive Compensation Management Virtual (Live) July 21, 2026 12:00 PM Eastern Brought to you by Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Automation, AI, and faster planning cycles have transformed how companies design incentive compensation, but most teams are still operating on systems and processes that can't keep pace.

Some similarity was found when examining short-term and long-term plans.

For WorldatWork Members 3 Sales Compensation Challenges that AI Can Help Tackle , Workspan Magazine article;Sales Compensation Plan: Organizational Inventory , tool;Sales Performance Management Technology Selection Guide , tool;Sales Performance Management , research;Return on Sales Expense , research; For Everyone The Power of Pay-for-Performance Sales Compensation Plans , Workspan Daily article;The Role of Profitability Metrics in Sales Compensation Plans , Workspan Daily article;5 Keys: Using Incentive Comp to Lift Performance, Profits, Innovation , Workspan Daily article;Sales Comp ’25 , conference; Most organizations see the benefit of driving a global sales compensation framework across local countries.

For this first installment, Workspan spoke with John Lowell, partner with Chicago-based actuarial, consulting and pension administration firm October Three Consulting, about how the past two-plus years have affected how employers think about defined benefit pension plans in the COVID era.

Cover Story Workspan Magazine Progress on Pay Equity - How Long is the Road Ahead?

Total Cash Compensation = Base Compensation + Incentive Compensation Compensation - Total Direct Compensation (TDC) Total annual cash compensation (base salary and annual incentives/bonuses) plus theannualized value of long-term incentives.

;Understand long-term incentive design elements.

EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION COMPLEXITY Executive compensation contracts are complex because they consist of many, often conceptually distinct elements and conditions, such as a fixed base salary, contingent components (short-term and long-term incentives, conditional-on-performance goals and tenure), benefits (e.g., retirement benefits) and perquisites (e.g., health insurance).

However, a substantial amount of research suggests that incentive pay has attention-directing effects that influence an employee’s experience with performance measures.

Create Better Alignment The behavioral preference of retirees to view their assets in terms of periodic income flows rather than aggregate sums supports the importance of primarily communicating and educating DC plan participants about retirement income projections.