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When it comes to compensating expatriates, I find this subject to be very interesting. Mainly because if the person who is working in a different country is excited to be there, it provides a win-win situation for both parties. Companies are always looking to expand their markets and understand their customers better, and having a diverse workforce that has different cultural experience is always a good thing. For the employee, it provides a chance to work in a different country, see other parts of the world and experience their culture, and have something that provides them with income and a good reference to have on their resume.

I think that when it comes to expat compensation, a few things should be considered. For one, relocation costs should be something that the company is willing to pay for. Often people who are willing to work in other countries are young, and young people typically do not have that much money. Having a company that understands this and is willing to cover the costs of travel and relocation is a big plus. Another thing to consider is if there are other people from your country or non-natives that will be able to offer support while the employee gets situated. Traveling can be a major lifestyle change, and having someone to aid in the transition is something that would be appreciated by the expat.

Other things to consider are exchange rates, 401k plans, and other monetary issues. If someone is willing to relocate, travel very far, put themselves in uncomfortable situations, and be far from their family, they should be compensated better than they were at home. Making sure that the company is taking into account exchange rates of currencies and setting the employee up for success is extremely important.

Overall, making sure the expat is comfortable in their new country is important to both the employee and the company. If they are uncomfortable, their performance in the workplace can be affected. Keeping them safe, compensated properly, and comfortable will make for the most successful pairing.

This week we learned about executive compensation and just how highly paid some of the upper management positions are at major companies. The typical understanding of why executive pay is so high across the board is because these people are a part of “special groups,” meaning they provide strategic benefits to the company that ordinary employees do not. However, according to a CNBC report, over the last 40 years, average executive pay has increased more than 1000% while the average worker’s pay has only increased about 12%. This raises concerns that CEOs and other executives are making too much money for what they contribute to the company, and the dissonance between them and their workers is unfair. Others believe that company executives should have enormous salaries, as it can provide motivation to lower tiered employees to work harder to become a high earner.

My opinion on this matter falls somewhere in the middle ground between the two beliefs. For starters, being a CEO or a high level manager of a major company is a difficult job; you have every employee, shareholder, and government official looking to you as the face of the company, and you must make decisions that are in the best interest of the organization. At the same time, when I see CEOs that make hundreds of millions of dollars a year, I do wonder how much they could possibly be contributing to the company that warrants this much money. Many people are in favor of cutting executive salaries and redistributing some of that pay to the average worker, but when the money is divided over all of the people in the organization, the average worker wouldn’t be making that much more money, and you now have a CEO who is upset that he/she had to take a pay cut. The entire situation seems to create more problems when you try and make changes to the current structure.

If I were in charge of compensation for these large companies with CEOs making hundreds of millions of dollars, I likely wouldn’t cut their pay. If you make a huge pay cut to the CEO, they would likely leave the company, and finding a new CEO that is willing to take a smaller salary compared to other companies would be difficult. I would instead institute policies that limit the amount of growth executive salaries could experience. As we’ve seen over the years, executive salaries are increasing at an almost exponential rate, so slowing that growth rate might provide some relief to the issue. These changes might be putting caps on the amount of company stock the CEO can hold, and limiting bonuses and other benefit packages that contribute to the bulk of their pay. This allows the CEO to still make enormous amounts of money, keep them happy and motivated to lead the company, but prevents their compensation from exploding in the years to come.

When it comes to hiring and motivating new CEOs to lead the company well, I think that stock options and bonuses are most crucial to capturing their attention within the realm of compensation. If the CEO does a good job and owns large portions of the companies stock, it motivates them to make decisions that will increase the stock price. It is the most logical way to motivate them, but I also believe that there should be limits on how much they can hold. My take is to give them enough that they can realize gains on stock when they make positive decisions for the company, but only give them enough that they need to make good decisions to make money off their stock options.

Cox. J. August 2019. “CEOs see pay grow 1000% in the last 40 years, and now make 278 times the average worker.” CNBC, 2019. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/16/ceos-see-pay-grow-1000percent-and-now-make-278-times-the-average-worker.html

Many employers that I have worked for offered discretionary benefits; these types of benefits are ones that they don’t necessarily need to offer but rather offer them to motivate and engage their employees. These benefits fall into three categories: Protection programs, paid-time off, and services like employee assistance programs. Protection programs typically include insurances, such as life and disability, as well as retirement assistance and contribution plans such as a 401k. Paid time off allows employees to take time away from work to manage other aspects of their lives without worrying about their income, and services covers a wide range of benefits from childcare assistance, tuition reimbursement, and even transportation.

When a company is short on funds, and budgets become tight, cutting or removing some of these discretionary benefits is a way in which they can save money. If I were working for a company and was tasked with ranking these benefit categories in terms of which should be eliminated, I would aim to remove the ones that have the smallest impact on the employee. The service category would be the first thing I would eliminate, with things like company cars, wellness programs, and childcare services being a high cost to the company. Typically, services in this category can be achieved and maintained by the employee themselves with their salary, and while it would be an inconvenience, it could help the company recover financially and prevent the employee from being laid off. The next benefit I would start to cut back on would be paid time off. In a time where the company is not performing well, employees should be focused on their work and getting the company back in shape. While this does not mean cutting paid time off completely, a manager could reduce the number of paid time off days in order to save money throughout the year. The last category I would cut would be the protection services, mainly because it deals heavily with the employee’s futures. Insurance can be a costly expense to an individual, and if the company were to cut the benefits in this category, they would likely have a large portion of their workforce resign and find employment elsewhere. Taking a reduction in paid time off or giving up employee wellness programs might be difficult in the short run, but the employee needs to know that the company is taking care of them in the long term. That is why I would be hesitant to remove insurance programs and retirement assistance, because the employees would not be motivated to continue working with a company that won’t help them out with their future.

When I think of a time when I was especially motivated by compensation, I think back to the summer of 2019. I had just finished my Sophomore year of college at Oregon State, and I had just made one of the biggest purchases of my life up to that point: a new car. Everything seemed to be working out well until several events happened that cost me a lot of money. A spilled water bottle destroyed my laptop, my tuition increased several thousand dollars, and the car I just purchased started needing major services. I was working a job as a summer camp coach at a local athletic club, and it required a large amount of my energy to work there. I was exhausted after every shift, and it only paid me minimum wage.

I quickly realized that I was going to need to make more money in order to pay for the bills in my life. This led me to taking on another job at a golf course as a bartender. It was a great job that paid me very well, but it also required a lot of effort, and my shifts were scheduled half an hour after my shift at the summer camp ended. It was extremely difficult to maintain my employment at both jobs, and the need to make money was the only reason why I continued working at both places. In the end, I was able to make enough money to pay my bills, but it was very physically and mentally taxing on me all summer. While going to work every day was something I did not look forward to, I was motivated to show up and do a good job because I knew that I would be making a lot of money.

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