Searching Pondering Equity-Based Long-Term Incentive Plans on page 39

This allows for a single process to be run nationally.; ;Wrongfully reduced commissions to offset the costs of doing business.; ;Commission plans and rates once set should not be revised to account for increased costs and/or company overhead (presumably, salespeople have no impact on these costs).; ;If salespeople impact certain measures of profitability and leadership wants to hold salespeople accountable for their impact on profitability, place the profitability metric closest to what salespeople control (e.g., gross margin or “sales margin”) in the incentive plan as a metric with clear calculations.; ;Improperly reduced commissions earned after sales were booked based on criteria that it did not disclose to its employees.; ;Create clear metric calculations and document these calculations in the plan documents sent to sales employees.; ;There are situations in which adjusting credit is appropriate (such as customer contract cancellations after an incentive has been paid);

For WorldatWork Members Navigating Complexities of Pay Equity Gap Analysis Methods , Workspan Magazine article;Making Your Rewards Total Through Equity , Workspan Magazine article;The Next Equity Frontier: Analytics to Ensure All Have Opportunity to Progress , Journal of Total Rewards article;The Potential Dangers of Aggregated Statistics , Journal of Total Rewards article;Engage Community , peer engagement and connection platform; For Everyone ‘Neither Dead nor Dying’: Studies Explore the Current State of DEI , Workspan Daily article;Demonstrate Equity and Diversity by Reinvesting in Employees , Workspan Daily article;Pay Equity: Focus Is on ‘What’ and ‘How,’ But Don’t Forget the ‘Why,’ Workspan Daily article;Are DEI Metrics in Executive Incentive Plans Gone for Good?

Depending on the industry, future growth and other factors, we expect that CEO pay will increase by 8% to 12% in 2024 — with the uptick being fueled by hefty increases in long-term incentive (LTI) grants.

Rossi: The answer varies significantly by industry, customer type — such as business-to-business versus business-to-consumer — and sales role, but some fairly common tactical sales compensation changes that may last in the long term include simplifying plans to two measures (three maximum), to enable agility with less to analyze/change, ensure better administration, and reduce goal-setting pressure and workload for sales operations as well as sales.

Options outlined by Korn Ferry include: ;Single bonuses based on the completion of AI certifications or training programs; ;Periodic bonuses calculated as a percentage of base pay; ;Equity vesting over several years (which also carries an additional retention benefit); According to Seifert, structuring AI premiums in this way, as opposed to building them into base pay, helps employers avoid: ;Substantial salary gaps between workers with otherwise similar roles;; ;Pay transparency and salary disclosure challenges; and,; ;The possibility of artificially inflating the value of a role and eventually needing to increase all salaries proportionately as the skills become more ubiquitous.; Variable compensation structures come down to paying not just for AI skills but for their outcomes , Seifert said — which, along with the skills themselves, organizations need to identify and explicitly articulate to make them measurable.

But … your annual compensation cycle is still many months away — and those employees may start job-hunting elsewhere rather than waiting that long for a pay bump or incentive payout.

Organizations can help mitigate the problem by putting guardrails in place for remote workers and offering a slew of well-being resources to their entire employee base, experts assert.

Proc. 2025-19 ).; ;The Department of Health and Human Services released a final rule in June that included updated out-of-pocket annual limits for certain group health plans (which were notably retracted and increased from previously announced 2026 limits).; Additionally, H.R. 1 (otherwise known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act), which President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4, introduced significant changes to benefit plans that TR pros can incorporate into their benefit plan designs for 2026 and beyond.

“Companies should consider all the options in the toolkit — base pay, short- and long-term incentives, recognition awards, career progression, development programs and opportunities — and align on the relationship of each one to performance,” she said.

While most organizations are doing two adjustments per year, they are being more targeted in their approach, with over 50% conducting compensation review of specific employee groups (further 27% are planning/considering) and over 40% paid targeted base salary increases for specific employee groups (further 34% are planning considering).