HR Daily AU: HR stepping up as keeper of the remuneration strategy
September 22, 2021
Dottie Schindlinger
The “complex role” HR plays when setting board pay and putting forward remuneration proposals is coming into the spotlight, an expert says. Across the ASX 300, the average CEO total realized pay (TRP) decreased by 10.5% from 2019 to 2020, according to research by the Diligent Institute.
But among the 47 companies in the ASX 300 that initiated COVID-19 pay cuts for CEOs, the average CEO TRP increased by 11%, according to the report. Of those companies, 65% promised to cut the CEO base salary, 31% committed to a cut in both the CEO base salary and short-term incentives (STIs), and 4% proposed cuts to only STIs.
There’s increased attention on executive pay in light of the pandemic, with investors expecting a more conservative approach to executive compensation in 2020, and this will continue through the upcoming proxy season as well, says Diligent Institute’s head of international research, Edna Frimpong.
As the 2021 proxy season approaches, she says it’s worth noting that AGM strikes are on the rise – the number of ASX 300-listed companies that received strikes against their remuneration reports jumped from 24 in 2019 to 32 in 2020.
Posted by HR Daily AU
About the author
Executive Director
Dottie Schindlinger is Executive Director of the Diligent Institute, the modern governance think tank and global research arm of Diligent Corporation. In her role, Dottie directs the Institute’s thought leadership on corporate governance and related topics. She also serves as a lead spokesperson for both Diligent Institute and Diligent Corporation, giving dozens of presentations to boards and executives at events around the globe. Dottie’s work has been featured in Fortune, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and multiple governance and technology publications. She is co-author of the book, Governance in the Digital Age: A Guide for the Modern Corporate Board Director, ©2019, John Wiley & Sons, and she co-hosts the fortnightly show, The Corporate Director Podcast.
Dottie brings over twenty years’ experience in governance-related roles, including serving as a director, officer, committee chair, senior executive, governance consultant and trainer for private, public, and nonprofit boards. She was a founding team member of the tech start-up BoardEffect, a board management software provider focused on healthcare and nonprofit boards, acquired by Diligent in 2016. She served as the Vice Chair of the Board of the Alice Paul Institute until April 2020, and is a Fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar on Corporate Governance. Dottie is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and lives in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with her husband, Ron.