Thirty years ago, I started on a journey. I arrived at a new job with a firm that no longer exists in the form that it was in back in 1985. Hewitt Associates (HA as it was referred to internally) was a consulting firm whose primary business was actuarial consulting on defined benefit pension plans in the US. It was a partnership. The number of firms like that that still exist has dwindled. In that size range of company, their number has dwindled to zero.
In any event, I was embarking on a career as an actuary. Frankly, I had no idea what I would be doing in that career. I had taken the first two actuarial exams because my starting salary depended on them. One was basic college math (mostly calculus) and the other was probability and statistics, so I thought I would be doing a lot of math in my career. I guess I have, but rarely that type of math.
I was going to be working on corporate pension plans. I didn't know what a pension plan was. I didn't know much else about what I was going to be doing either. I recall a friend asking me just the day before what I was going to be doing. I had no idea.
What I do recall is that I ran a proprietary computer program on a mainframe computer. As I was instructed to do, I took a lot of numbers from the output and put them in rows and columns on large green ledger sheets. Mostly, I added them vertically and I was very good at that. I then took the sums and placed them on other worksheets where I got to do addition and subtraction mostly. Sometimes, I amortized these numbers over time, usually using an HP-12C. It's still the calculator of choice in the profession.
Eventually, I took many of these numbers and used them to mark up something that I learned was called an actuarial report. My markup went to this ancient-sounding thing called a typing pool where a group of really good typists would make my ugly handwritten draft look pretty. They used another ancient device known as an electric typewriter.
I don't quite do the same things anymore, but some of it is still related to corporate pension plans. As time passed, my career moved from doing the grunt work to consulting based oftentimes on what others did.
It's a career that has taken me through highs and lows. I've made some of the finest friends a person could ever imagine. And, along the way, I think I've gotten pretty good at what I do. My profession has been good enough to honor me a few times. That was pretty cool.
One thing that has not changed at all about what I do is the respect and actual greatness of the profession While we are joked about as being boring nerds, actuaries are a rare, yet important breed. We tend to look at problems differently than most and that view that we take is often incredibly effective.
I'm proud of the profession. I'll take this moment to say that I'm pretty proud of what I have accomplished, too.
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Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Monday, August 24, 2015
How to Handle Your Pay Ratio Disclosures
This is an article that I wrote for Bloomberg BNA that was published last Friday, August 21. Note that you may not reproduce this article without express written permission from BNA.
Reproduced with permission from Pension & Benefits Daily, 162 PBD, 08/21/2015. Copyright 2015 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (800-372-1033)
http://www.bna.com
Pay Ratio Rule: Practical Tips for Making the Best of a Bad Disclosure Day
BY JOHN H. LOWELL
Introduction
I t’s been about five years since Congress passed and President Obama signed into law the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In response to the financial crisis that escalated in 2008, legislators sought to put more controls on primarily the larger financial institutions that do business in the U.S. But, buried in this law was a little-debated provision sitting in Section 953(b). It has become known as the ‘‘pay ratio’’ rule.
On its surface, the pay ratio rule seems innocuous. Filers of proxies are to disclose the ratio of the compensation of the median-paid employee of the company to that of the CEO. However, as many have learned, this may be more difficult and more inflammatory than it seems.
In early August 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a final rule, effective for proxies for fiscal years beginning after 2016, explaining exactly who needs to disclose this ratio and how this is to be done. To its credit, the SEC tried its best to satisfy the needs of those who view this ratio as an important data point for a company and to satisfy companies that complained of potentially large expenditures to produce what they view as a seemingly meaningless number.
If what you need are the technical details specific to your company as to how these calculations are to be done, you can find summaries all over the Internet. Securities or executive compensation counsel will be more than happy to help you. What you may have more difficulty finding are explanations of how to prepare for that 2018 proxy season and what strategies your company may employ as permitted by the final rule.
Key Elements
Before we dive into that, it’s important to review some of the key elements of the final rule, particularly in places where either the SEC has made changes from the proposed rule or where it has afforded employers certain options.
Good consultative thinking can be very helpful here. Let’s consider a few possible situations.
Examples
Company A – Many Seasonal Employees.
Company A (calendar-year filer) does significant business around the holidays. In fact, its workforce is typically about three times as large between September 15 and January 15 as it is the rest of the year. Because of that, the median-paid employee of Company A is likely to be a seasonal employee (recall that companies are not permitted to annualize the compensation of seasonal employees). Additionally, those seasonal employees likely never meet the requirements to participate in most of Company A’s benefit programs including its pension plan. This pay ratio is going to be high. Company A should consider making an additional disclosure showing a comparison of the compensation of its CEO to that of its median full-time employee. While this won’t change the required number, it will improve the optics significantly.
Company B – U.S. Pension Only.
Company B is a multinational organization with significant employees in countries around the globe. Most of the U.S. workforce is well-paid, making it unlikely that the median employee will be from the U.S. Company B has provided both a broad-based and a nonqualified pension plan in the U.S. for many years. In most of the countries in which it operates, providing pensions is not the norm and doing so would make Company B less competitive. Because the increase in the actuarial present value of accrued pensions is part of the calculation of ‘‘annual total compensation,’’ the pay ratio is going to be larger than Company B might like and its board thinks the required ratio is not representative. Company B should consider providing a ratio for the U.S. only and a ratio without regard to pensions as supplemental disclosures.
Company C – Excellent Performance Leads to Larger-Than-Usual Incentive Payouts.
Because of extraordinary performance over the period ending Dec. 31, 2016, Company C’s executives received much larger-than-normal cash incentive payouts (short-term incentive) and equity grants and awards (long-term incentive) in 2017. The pay ratio here is going to be very high, but the board’s rationale is that the CEO deserved it. There may be many readers of the pay ratio who don’t agree. Perhaps they won’t look at the reasons for the high pay ratio, but simply the number itself.
Company C might consider a number of options. First, there might be a narrative describing why certain elements of compensation were as high as they were. Second, Company C might disclose what the pay ratio would have been had the company (and CEO) merely met goals for the year rather than exceeding them. Third, Company C might disclose what the pay ratio would have been had its CEO received his average incentive payouts for the last three years or five years. Any or all of these will help to lend some perspective to the otherwise high pay ratio.
Company D – Varying Global Economies.
Company D has its operations primarily in the U.S. and in South America. It provides broad-based and nonqualified pensions in virtually every country in which it operates. During 2017, the economy in South America was vastly different from that in the U.S. As a result, while interest rates dipped in the U.S., they rose significantly in every country in South America in which Company D operates. This combination produced massive increases in pension values in the U.S. (for executives and for rank-and-file), but decreases (zero for annual total compensation purposes) in all of South America. Since pensions are a significant portion of actual compensation for Company D’s South American employees, their compensation will appear understated for 2017 while the CEO’s compensation will appear overstated.
Company D should consider several additional disclosure options:
Company E is probably the most complex situation we will face. In the last few years leading up to and including 2017, it has generated a significant part of its revenue and most of its profits from its financial services division, which operates mostly in the U.S. Its CEO has to operate like the leader of a large bank and is therefore compensated commensurate with that. But, as a hedge against cyclical issues, Company E also operates in a variety of other industries and in multiple countries. The industries that are the most labor-intensive also employ the majority of their workers in low-paid third world countries. And, to the extent that Company E is involved in those industries in the U.S., its workers are largely unionized.
Company E has considered sampling to simplify the process. However, upon an examination of the rules, Company E realizes that it will have to do samples of each of its industry groupings in each country in which it operates. While it might reduce the number of employees that it has to evaluate, the expense of getting through the samplings outweighs the gains.
Company E realizes that its pay ratio is going to look very high. Philosophically, it is fine with that as its board feels certain that it is justified. But with multiple union contracts coming up for bargaining, Company E also knows that the unions will use the pay ratios to wage multiple media campaigns against Company E and its CEO.
In its disclosures that will go along with its required pay ratio disclosure, Company E needs to consider all of this. Here are some of the disclosures that Company E might make:
Now What?
If you happen to be a part of one of the fortunate companies for whom this disclosure will neither be a calculational nor public relations problem, then your job should be easy. If, on the other hand, your company is closer to one of these more problematic situations, then you might have your work cut out for you.
Chances are that most in your company will not focus on this until after the end of fiscal year 2017. That may be okay, or it may not. Developing some of the ratios that we’ve discussed may be time-consuming and data-intensive. Trying to do that at the last minute may not be advisable.
Similarly, for a number of companies, this will be more than a calculation. It will be a strategy. Given the potential cost in investor relations and perhaps a battle over say-on-pay, it might be wise to have someone independently thinking about these issues. While using consultants haphazardly can create problems that were never there instead of solving them, here using a consultant who has thought through the issues and can help your company do the same would likely be money well spent.
You know that your company pays both rank-and-file and executives appropriately. Now you have to ensure that you manage the message so that all the interested observers know that as well.
Reproduced with permission from Pension & Benefits Daily, 162 PBD, 08/21/2015. Copyright 2015 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (800-372-1033)
http://www.bna.com
Pay Ratio Rule: Practical Tips for Making the Best of a Bad Disclosure Day
BY JOHN H. LOWELL
Introduction
I t’s been about five years since Congress passed and President Obama signed into law the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In response to the financial crisis that escalated in 2008, legislators sought to put more controls on primarily the larger financial institutions that do business in the U.S. But, buried in this law was a little-debated provision sitting in Section 953(b). It has become known as the ‘‘pay ratio’’ rule.
On its surface, the pay ratio rule seems innocuous. Filers of proxies are to disclose the ratio of the compensation of the median-paid employee of the company to that of the CEO. However, as many have learned, this may be more difficult and more inflammatory than it seems.
In early August 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a final rule, effective for proxies for fiscal years beginning after 2016, explaining exactly who needs to disclose this ratio and how this is to be done. To its credit, the SEC tried its best to satisfy the needs of those who view this ratio as an important data point for a company and to satisfy companies that complained of potentially large expenditures to produce what they view as a seemingly meaningless number.
If what you need are the technical details specific to your company as to how these calculations are to be done, you can find summaries all over the Internet. Securities or executive compensation counsel will be more than happy to help you. What you may have more difficulty finding are explanations of how to prepare for that 2018 proxy season and what strategies your company may employ as permitted by the final rule.
Key Elements
Before we dive into that, it’s important to review some of the key elements of the final rule, particularly in places where either the SEC has made changes from the proposed rule or where it has afforded employers certain options.
- While the statute tells us that the number disclosed shall be the compensation of the median employee divided by that of the Principal Executive Officer (CEO for our purposes), both the proposed and final rules specify that it is in fact the reciprocal of that (a positive integer is intended).
- Generally, all employees of the parent company and subsidiaries included in the consolidated financials must be included, but:
- who is an employee may be determined as of any representative date within three months of the end of the fiscal year;
- compensation for full-time employees may be annualized, but part-time, temporary and seasonal workers’ pay may not be annualized;
- workers from countries with privacy rules that may preclude obtaining the necessary data may be excluded (if you exclude one worker from a country, you must exclude all of them); and
- companies may exclude all workers from additional countries up to a total of 5 percent of the total company employee population. In doing so, first the employees excluded due to privacy laws are counted. If that gets the company to 5 percent or more, then there are no more exclusions. If not, then additional countries may be excluded so long as the total of privacy exclusions and selected exclusions does not exceed 5 percent of the total number of employees of the company.
- Determination of the median-paid employee has been simplified:
- solely for purposes of determining who is the median employee, the company may look to compensation amounts from payroll or tax records; and
- once a median employee is chosen, the company may use the same employee as the median for two more years so long as there have not been changes to the company’s population or pay practices significant enough to make that determination unreasonable.
- Companies may apply cost-of-living adjustments to equalize pay between countries. s Companies may add to their disclosures so long as the additions are no more prominent than the required disclosure. All that gives companies some useful options, but with options comes analysis to determine what to do and where the data will come from.
- Determine which countries the company operates in. For those countries, determine:
- whether privacy laws preclude obtaining necessary data,
- what percentage of employees is excluded due to privacy laws, and
- if less than 5 percent, are there other countries that it would be possible and beneficial to exclude?
- What will it take to get payroll or tax records from all the countries? Alert people responsible for them in each foreign country now as to what you will need.
- Consider whether the value in using cost-of-living adjustments outweighs the cost of doing so. For some countries, good cost-of-living data may be very difficult to obtain. For others, while the national cost-of-living index may be high or low, the cost in the areas in which your employees work may be very different.
- Consider the benefits of sampling employees rather than using the whole population. Based on the descriptions of sampling techniques described by the SEC in both the proposed and final rules, for most companies, this exercise will not be worth the trouble of understanding the sampling techniques.
Good consultative thinking can be very helpful here. Let’s consider a few possible situations.
Examples
Company A – Many Seasonal Employees.
Company A (calendar-year filer) does significant business around the holidays. In fact, its workforce is typically about three times as large between September 15 and January 15 as it is the rest of the year. Because of that, the median-paid employee of Company A is likely to be a seasonal employee (recall that companies are not permitted to annualize the compensation of seasonal employees). Additionally, those seasonal employees likely never meet the requirements to participate in most of Company A’s benefit programs including its pension plan. This pay ratio is going to be high. Company A should consider making an additional disclosure showing a comparison of the compensation of its CEO to that of its median full-time employee. While this won’t change the required number, it will improve the optics significantly.
Company B – U.S. Pension Only.
Company B is a multinational organization with significant employees in countries around the globe. Most of the U.S. workforce is well-paid, making it unlikely that the median employee will be from the U.S. Company B has provided both a broad-based and a nonqualified pension plan in the U.S. for many years. In most of the countries in which it operates, providing pensions is not the norm and doing so would make Company B less competitive. Because the increase in the actuarial present value of accrued pensions is part of the calculation of ‘‘annual total compensation,’’ the pay ratio is going to be larger than Company B might like and its board thinks the required ratio is not representative. Company B should consider providing a ratio for the U.S. only and a ratio without regard to pensions as supplemental disclosures.
Company C – Excellent Performance Leads to Larger-Than-Usual Incentive Payouts.
Because of extraordinary performance over the period ending Dec. 31, 2016, Company C’s executives received much larger-than-normal cash incentive payouts (short-term incentive) and equity grants and awards (long-term incentive) in 2017. The pay ratio here is going to be very high, but the board’s rationale is that the CEO deserved it. There may be many readers of the pay ratio who don’t agree. Perhaps they won’t look at the reasons for the high pay ratio, but simply the number itself.
Company C might consider a number of options. First, there might be a narrative describing why certain elements of compensation were as high as they were. Second, Company C might disclose what the pay ratio would have been had the company (and CEO) merely met goals for the year rather than exceeding them. Third, Company C might disclose what the pay ratio would have been had its CEO received his average incentive payouts for the last three years or five years. Any or all of these will help to lend some perspective to the otherwise high pay ratio.
Company D – Varying Global Economies.
Company D has its operations primarily in the U.S. and in South America. It provides broad-based and nonqualified pensions in virtually every country in which it operates. During 2017, the economy in South America was vastly different from that in the U.S. As a result, while interest rates dipped in the U.S., they rose significantly in every country in South America in which Company D operates. This combination produced massive increases in pension values in the U.S. (for executives and for rank-and-file), but decreases (zero for annual total compensation purposes) in all of South America. Since pensions are a significant portion of actual compensation for Company D’s South American employees, their compensation will appear understated for 2017 while the CEO’s compensation will appear overstated.
Company D should consider several additional disclosure options:
- Disclose a ratio for its U.S. employees only,
- Disclose a ratio assuming that pension discount rates had not changed in any country, or
- Disclose a ratio without regard to pensions.
Company E is probably the most complex situation we will face. In the last few years leading up to and including 2017, it has generated a significant part of its revenue and most of its profits from its financial services division, which operates mostly in the U.S. Its CEO has to operate like the leader of a large bank and is therefore compensated commensurate with that. But, as a hedge against cyclical issues, Company E also operates in a variety of other industries and in multiple countries. The industries that are the most labor-intensive also employ the majority of their workers in low-paid third world countries. And, to the extent that Company E is involved in those industries in the U.S., its workers are largely unionized.
Company E has considered sampling to simplify the process. However, upon an examination of the rules, Company E realizes that it will have to do samples of each of its industry groupings in each country in which it operates. While it might reduce the number of employees that it has to evaluate, the expense of getting through the samplings outweighs the gains.
Company E realizes that its pay ratio is going to look very high. Philosophically, it is fine with that as its board feels certain that it is justified. But with multiple union contracts coming up for bargaining, Company E also knows that the unions will use the pay ratios to wage multiple media campaigns against Company E and its CEO.
In its disclosures that will go along with its required pay ratio disclosure, Company E needs to consider all of this. Here are some of the disclosures that Company E might make:
- U.S.-only pay ratio,
- Disclosure of median pay for a typical employee in each of the U.S. unions with a breakout highlighting the company’s large expenditure on union pensions,
- Salaried-employee-only pay ratio, or
- Additional pay ratio compared to the union employee’s median pay encompassing elements not normally included in annual total compensation such as health care expenditure.
Now What?
If you happen to be a part of one of the fortunate companies for whom this disclosure will neither be a calculational nor public relations problem, then your job should be easy. If, on the other hand, your company is closer to one of these more problematic situations, then you might have your work cut out for you.
Chances are that most in your company will not focus on this until after the end of fiscal year 2017. That may be okay, or it may not. Developing some of the ratios that we’ve discussed may be time-consuming and data-intensive. Trying to do that at the last minute may not be advisable.
Similarly, for a number of companies, this will be more than a calculation. It will be a strategy. Given the potential cost in investor relations and perhaps a battle over say-on-pay, it might be wise to have someone independently thinking about these issues. While using consultants haphazardly can create problems that were never there instead of solving them, here using a consultant who has thought through the issues and can help your company do the same would likely be money well spent.
You know that your company pays both rank-and-file and executives appropriately. Now you have to ensure that you manage the message so that all the interested observers know that as well.
Friday, August 7, 2015
SEC Finalizes Pay Ratio Rule -- Read the Plain English Description Here
Wednesday, after much controversy over the last five years, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released its final rule under Dodd-Frank Section 953(b) sometimes known as the Pay Ratio Rule. I have friends who are executive compensation attorneys and if you need legal advice on this rule, I can recommend any number of them to you, but I am going to write about it from a practical standpoint in plain English. What happened?
First, I'd like to commend the SEC. The statute on this rule has been very controversial. The SEC, in my opinion, has taken an approach that remains largely faithful to the exact wording of the statute and fully faithful to the intent of the statute (I'm not here to argue if the statute is worthwhile) while at the same time being sensitive to the concerns of employers with regard to the potential cost of compliance. It's rare that a government agency handles such a quandary this well.
Back in 2013, the SEC released a proposed rule on this topic. Since that time, the SEC received 287,400 comments on the proposed rule. More than 285,000 of them were form letters, but that still means that roughly 2,000 people took the time to write customized comments. To the credit of the Commissioners, they appear to have considered every last one of them. What they have crafted is practical, assuming that you find the result of the work practical.
What does the rule say? Here we go.
In its definitive proxy, each registrant shall disclose three items (at least since the rule says that the disclosure may be augmented):
First, I'd like to commend the SEC. The statute on this rule has been very controversial. The SEC, in my opinion, has taken an approach that remains largely faithful to the exact wording of the statute and fully faithful to the intent of the statute (I'm not here to argue if the statute is worthwhile) while at the same time being sensitive to the concerns of employers with regard to the potential cost of compliance. It's rare that a government agency handles such a quandary this well.
Back in 2013, the SEC released a proposed rule on this topic. Since that time, the SEC received 287,400 comments on the proposed rule. More than 285,000 of them were form letters, but that still means that roughly 2,000 people took the time to write customized comments. To the credit of the Commissioners, they appear to have considered every last one of them. What they have crafted is practical, assuming that you find the result of the work practical.
What does the rule say? Here we go.
In its definitive proxy, each registrant shall disclose three items (at least since the rule says that the disclosure may be augmented):
- The pay (as defined for proxy purposes) of the PEO (generally known as the CEO or Chief Executive Officer),
- The pay (same definition) of the median-compensated employee of the employer, and
- The ratio of the first item to the second expressed as some number (integer will work) to 1.
Identifying the median compensated employee can be a very costly process. Consider a company with 1001 employees. The median compensated will be the one whose compensation is more than that of 500 others and less than that of 500 others. In order to determine this (by the letter of the law), one would need to determine the annual total compensation (that's the proxy compensation) or ATC for each of the 1001. They would need to be ranked and then we would find the 501st person. That is a lot of work.
The final rule allows for two significant simplifications for purposes of determining the median employee:
The final rule allows for two significant simplifications for purposes of determining the median employee:
- Companies may choose to use sampling techniques in order to reasonably determine who the median paid employee is, and
- Companies may use and consistently applied measure of compensation from payroll or tax records.
While the first of those may be more trouble than it is worth, the second should be a big help to lots of companies.
Further, once a company establishes a median employee, it may use that same employee for three years provided that there have not been significant changes (undefined term) in the compensation practices or the makeup of employees. If that employee terminates, then the company may reasonably select a similarly situated employee as a replacement.
Many commenters were concerned about the disclosures for multi-national companies especially those with significant numbers of employees in lower cost-of-living countries. Certainly, for example, $50,000 per year goes further in Kyrgyzstan than it does in the US. The final rule allows companies to adjust (on a nation-by-nation basis) compensation for cost-of-living differences.
Calculating proxy compensation can be cumbersome. It includes other than just cash compensation. So, for companies with defined benefit plans and broad-based equity compensation arrangements, it is entirely possible that multiple outside experts would need to be engaged. While that remains the case, the final rule allows companies to make reasonable estimates of components of compensation.
The statute makes clear that an employee is every employee worldwide, whether full-time, part-time, temporary, or seasonal of the controlled group. The final rule allows for all of these simplifications or adjustments:
Many commenters were concerned about the disclosures for multi-national companies especially those with significant numbers of employees in lower cost-of-living countries. Certainly, for example, $50,000 per year goes further in Kyrgyzstan than it does in the US. The final rule allows companies to adjust (on a nation-by-nation basis) compensation for cost-of-living differences.
Calculating proxy compensation can be cumbersome. It includes other than just cash compensation. So, for companies with defined benefit plans and broad-based equity compensation arrangements, it is entirely possible that multiple outside experts would need to be engaged. While that remains the case, the final rule allows companies to make reasonable estimates of components of compensation.
The statute makes clear that an employee is every employee worldwide, whether full-time, part-time, temporary, or seasonal of the controlled group. The final rule allows for all of these simplifications or adjustments:
- A determination date applied consistently within 3 months of the end of the fiscal year
- Only subsidiaries included in the consolidated financial statements need be considered
- Employees where data may be unattainable due to national (or EU) privacy rules may be excluded
- De minimis numbers of employees (up to 5% in total) may be excluded on a country by country basis
Let's look in more detail at those last two. Suppose the number of employees excluded under the privacy rule exception exceeds 5%. Then you are done with your exclusions. On the other hand, if your privacy exclusions are exactly 2% of your total population, then you may exclude other countries whose total employee population is less than an additional 3% of your total population. If, for example, you can't find another country with fewer than 3% of your total employees, then you are done with your exclusions.
In preparing these disclosures, companies will make lots of assumptions, simplifications, and estimates. All must be disclosed.
In somewhat of a gift to employers, additional disclosures and ratios are permitted, but not required so long as the additional disclosures and ratios are no more prominent than the required ones. I think this could be useful.
Consider a company with its management team and sales force in the US, but the bulk of its production facilities in third world countries (I'm not weighing in on whether this is a good or responsible practice or not). Because manual labor is particularly inexpensive in Burkina Faso, for example, Everybody's Favorite Company (EFC) has an extremely high pay ratio, say 10000 to 1. Its CEO had total compensation of $10 million and most employees in Burkina Faso earned only $1000. And further, EFC can't find cost-of-living data for Burkina Faso, so it is not able to do that adjustment. EFC is perhaps rightfully concerned about its pay ratio disclosure, so it elects to do a second pay ratio disclosure limited specifically to US employees. In this case, the ratio declines to 100 to 1.
In somewhat of a gift to employers, additional disclosures and ratios are permitted, but not required so long as the additional disclosures and ratios are no more prominent than the required ones. I think this could be useful.
Consider a company with its management team and sales force in the US, but the bulk of its production facilities in third world countries (I'm not weighing in on whether this is a good or responsible practice or not). Because manual labor is particularly inexpensive in Burkina Faso, for example, Everybody's Favorite Company (EFC) has an extremely high pay ratio, say 10000 to 1. Its CEO had total compensation of $10 million and most employees in Burkina Faso earned only $1000. And further, EFC can't find cost-of-living data for Burkina Faso, so it is not able to do that adjustment. EFC is perhaps rightfully concerned about its pay ratio disclosure, so it elects to do a second pay ratio disclosure limited specifically to US employees. In this case, the ratio declines to 100 to 1.
A second company with a December 31 fiscal year end, everest.com, does a massive holiday business. As a result, Everest has a high pay ratio reflective of its hiring each year of seasonal employees. In fact, in a typical year, Everest has more than twice as many employees from September 1 through December 31 than it does the rest of the year. As a result, Everest reports a pay ratio of 750 to 1. Everest doesn't like this, so it chooses to determine an additional ratio of all but seasonal employees. The company is much more pleased to find that this ratio is only 175 to 1.
Generally, companies are required to report the pay ratio for any fiscal year beginning on or after January 1, 2017 (there are exceptions for certain new filers and emerging companies). This means that the first required disclosures (companies are encouraged to disclose before then) will generally be in the early months of 2018.
The final rule is long and complex. There are many legal issues around it and for those you should contact an attorney.
The final rule is long and complex. There are many legal issues around it and for those you should contact an attorney.
There are also issues that are far more consultative in nature. They will generally require quantitative acumen, actuarial knowledge, and comfort with executive compensation, as well as a focus on business issues. For those, you should just click here.
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