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More than six months have passed since the COVID-19 pandemic began. In February, American businesses were hit hard by shutdowns, shifting demand, operational disruptions, and significant new challenges for employee health and safety. Many S&P Composite 1500 companies responded with changes to their compensation programs for executives and employees. Initial pay actions in March, April and May focused on conserving cash, mainly through salary cuts. Over the summer, companies adapted, and pay actions began to focus on annual and long-term incentive plans.
Public filings in September and October offered the first detailed look at how U.S. public companies adjusted their executive compensation plans in response to COVID-19. Public companies with fiscal year ends (FYEs) on or near June 30 recently filed their proxy statements, which included robust discussions of the impact of COVID-19 on 2020 executive compensation decisions and plans for 2021. Of the S&P Composite 1500 companies – which Compensation Advisory Partners (CAP) has been closely tracking – 65 companies with FYEs between May 30 and July 3 filed their annual proxy statements by October 7. Of the 65 companies, 28 – or 43 percent – announced changes to their outstanding and go-forward incentive plans because of COVID-19. Approximately 60 percent of the 28 companies had responded at the start of the pandemic with immediate human capital actions, including temporary reductions to executive base salaries, and adverse broad-based employee actions.
It is too early to say whether actions taken by the June FYE companies are indicative of trends we will see when most companies file their proxy statements in the spring of 2021. From an industry-sector standpoint, the June FYE companies show significant representation from Information Technology (28%), Industrials (15%), and Consumer Staples (15%). While not a completely representative sample, this group of companies still provides an interesting early look at executive compensation responses to COVID-19 beyond annual pay reductions.
The majority of the 28 companies that reported COVID-19-related pay actions adjusted both their annual and long-term incentive plans. About 85 percent of the companies made changes to their annual incentive plans, and 75 percent made changes to long-term incentives. Twenty-two of the companies took more than one incentive action.
Annual Incentives
Of the 28 companies, 24 made changes to their outstanding and/or go-forward annual incentive plans. The most common changes were modifying the performance period, exercising discretion to determine award amounts, revising the payout scale, delaying goal-setting and adding or changing performance metrics.
Prevalent annual incentive actions are discussed below.
Adjusted Performance Period
Several June FYE companies adjusted the performance period for an outstanding plan. For these companies, COVID-19 only impacted fourth-quarter results, so most of their 2020 fiscal years were business as usual. In go-forward plans, shorter performance periods are intended to focus executives and employees on immediate priorities, and to recognize that goal-setting will be difficult because of COVID-19.
Action |
# of Companies |
Outstanding Plan |
|
Shortened the performance period to exclude the pandemic. |
9 |
Go-Forward Plan |
|
Bifurcated annual performance periods. |
2 |
Set quarterly goals. |
2 |
Use of Discretion
Eight companies applied discretion to outstanding incentive awards. The disclosed rationale for the use of upward discretion was to recognize the extraordinary efforts of executives and employees who contributed to companies’ COVID-19 responses, and to recognize performance before COVID-19 hit.
Action |
# of Companies |
Outstanding Plan |
|
Applied discretion to increase annual incentive funding and awards. |
7 |
Used downward discretion to reflect the negative impact of COVID-19. |
1 |
Revised Payout Scale
Revisions to payout scales for outstanding awards were made primarily to prorate awards in conjunction with adjusted performance periods, as discussed in “Adjusted Performance Period.” Payout scales were revised in go-forward plans for a number of reasons: to widen the performance curve to reflect the difficulty with goal-setting, to reduce maximum payouts for cost containment, and to implement a payout floor and increase the award maximums to incentivize superior performance.
Action |
# of Companies |
Outstanding Plan |
|
Revised payout scales in conjunction with shortening performance periods to remove the impact of COVID-19. The payouts were prorated based on how much the performance periods were shortened. |
3 |
Go-Forward Plan |
|
Widened performance curves. |
1 |
Reduced maximum annual incentive award to be 150 percent of target, down from 200 percent of target. |
1 |
Added a payout floor, increased maximum payout, and adjusted corporate and business unit award multipliers. |
1 |
Delayed Goal-Setting
Six companies delayed goal-setting for go-forward plans. The rationale is to allow time for more information to predict financial performance.
Action |
# of Companies |
Go-Forward Plan |
|
Delayed goal-setting in conjunction with breaking performance periods into smaller units. |
3 |
Delayed goal-setting to have more accurate information for forecasting. |
3 |
Added/Changed Metrics
Several June FYE companies changed performance metrics for their annual incentive plans to move away from financial measures. The shift to operational measures illustrates that companies are opting to focus executives and employees on drivers of financial performance, which may provide clearer line of sight or may be easier to forecast in unpredictable times. Similarly, the shift to strategic and individual metrics may allow for more discretion in payout determination and recognizes the importance of non-financial goals at this time.
Action |
# of Companies |
Outstanding Plan |
|
Changed metrics for outstanding awards to focus on near-term priorities, and company health and well-being. |
1 |
Go-Forward Plan |
|
Adjusted annual performance metrics, including shifting to operational, strategic, and individual performance. |
4 |
Long-Term Incentives
Of the 28 companies, 21 made changes to their outstanding and/or go-forward long-term incentive plans. All but four of the companies that adjusted long-term incentives also adjusted annual incentive plans. The most common changes were modifying the performance period, revising the payout scale, changing the long-term incentive vehicle mix, changing metrics for performance awards, and delaying goal-setting.
Modified the Performance Period
As with annual incentive plans, modifying the performance period was the most prevalent long-term incentive plan change. CAP predicts goal-setting will remain as a key challenge for incentive plan design for 2021 and beyond. The COVID-19 pandemic hurt many companies and helped others (e.g., consumer staples), resulting in highly unusual results for 2020. To address future uncertainty during goal-setting, breaking performance periods into smaller periods may become more common until economic conditions stabilize.
Action |
# of Companies |
Outstanding Plan |
|
Modified the performance period for outstanding awards, including omitting the quarter negatively impacted by COVID-19. With that change, some companies also prorated the award amounts commensurately. |
7 |
Go-Forward Plan |
|
Divided the award period into shorter periods for purposes of goal-setting and award calculation. |
3 |
Shortened the three-year performance period to two years. |
1 |
Changed the goal-setting approach to include a cumulative goal. |
1 |
Revised the Payout Scale
Revisions to past payout opportunities and maximums were made to prorate awards in conjunction with shortened performance periods, or to cap the payout and conserve cash.
Action |
# of Companies |
Outstanding Plan |
|
Decreased the payout scale for outstanding awards in conjunction with omitting quarters negatively impacted by COVID-19. Prorated the awards commensurately (e.g., if performance were measured over 11 quarters instead of 12, the award would be prorated by 11/12). |
4 |
Revised award payouts to the maximum based on performance in quarters not negatively impacted by COVID-19. |
1 |
Capped the maximum payout at target. |
1 |
Go-Forward Plan |
|
Awarded grants at target regardless of performance. |
1 |
Increased maximum payout. |
1 |
Changed Long-Term Incentive Vehicles
Ten companies adjusted the long-term incentive mix for upcoming awards. The most common change was to add time-vested vehicles or to increase the percentage of time-vested vehicles overall to increase retention and recognize the difficulties of goal-setting during the pandemic.
Action |
# of Companies |
Go-Forward Plan |
|
Added time-vesting vehicles or increased the percentage of time-vested vehicles in the overall mix. |
6 |
Added stock options to the 2021 fiscal year grant. |
2 |
Eliminated stock options. |
2 |
Not granting equity. |
2 |
Note: Two companies took multiple actions.
Changed Performance Plan Metrics
Given the impact of COVID-19 on U.S. companies, changing performance measures to reflect new business realities has not been a surprising development. Five companies with June FYEs adjusted their long-term performance measures. CAP expects to see more changes in performance measures in go-forward performance plans as companies file proxy statements.
Action |
# of Companies |
Go-Forward Plan |
|
Adopted relative performance measures, which mitigate the risk of goals being missed because of market events beyond management’s control. |
2 |
Added strategic metrics to focus management on COVID-related priorities. |
2 |
Eliminated a more complicated return measure to focus on revenue and profitability. |
1 |
Delayed Goal-Setting
Five companies delayed goal-setting for future awards. Delaying annual grants or choosing to set targets in the second quarter could provide companies with flexibility to set more accurate and realistic performance goals.
Action |
# of Companies |
Go-Forward Plan |
|
Made annual grants but delaying goal-setting under the grants until there is more predictability surrounding COVID-19 and its impact. |
3 |
Delayed making annual grants. |
2 |
Special Awards
Four companies with June FYEs provided special awards to executives. FedEx and Nike made special awards to replace annual and long-term incentive awards that were not paid because of COVID-19. Tapestry and Herman Miller provided special grants to incentivize executive performance. CAP expects to see more special awards in the future.
Company |
Revenue ($M) |
Position |
Grant Date |
Award Value ($000s) |
Award Type* |
Vesting |
FedEx Corporation |
$71,490 |
CEO |
06/15/2020 |
$14,160 |
SOs |
Ratable 4-year |
COO |
$3,981 |
|||||
NIKE, Inc. |
$37,337 |
CEO |
06/01/2020 |
$6,750 |
Cash |
Immediate |
Other NEOs |
$2,533 (avg.) |
|||||
Tapestry, Inc. |
$4,961 |
All NEOs |
08/17/2020 |
$200 – $500 |
PSUs |
Cliff 2-year |
Herman Miller |
$2,487 |
Leadership, including NEOs |
07/14/2020 |
Not disclosed |
Premium SOs |
Ratable 3-year |
* SOs are stock options; PSUs are performance share units.
Looking Ahead
CAP expects companies to make increasingly more changes to their executive compensation programs to address the impact of COVID-19, market volatility and the challenges of credible long-term forecasting.
Annual Incentive Plans
- Use of informed or structured discretion to determine payouts.
- New or increased weighting on operational, strategic, and individual performance metrics. These may be incorporated as environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics, which provide a more holistic view of business performance and consider different stakeholders.
- Use of wider performance scales around target goals, which may lead to less volatility in payouts.
- Delay of goal-setting to improve accuracy.
- Use of shorter performance periods to address goal-setting difficulties.
Long-Term Incentive Plans
- Increased use of time-based restricted stock/units for retention. CAP still expects at least 50% of long-term incentives to be performance-based, given the long-standing expectations of proxy advisors and major investors.
- Companies may exclude the chief executive officer or named executive officers from the shift to time-based equity.
- Use of relative performance measures (primarily total shareholder return), or an increase in the weight of relative measures.
- Delay of goal-setting to improve accuracy.
- Use of shorter periods for performance-based long-term incentives to lower the risk of the overall incentive program.