While base-pay increases remain modest, employers are increasingly relying on bonuses for attracting, motivating, and retaining talent, according to a survey by Hewitt Associates.
A payday loan company that operates under the name Quick Cash has paid $519,088 in back wages to 900 employees to settle Department of Labor allegations that the company violated the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
Several companies have disclosed that they have launched internal probes of their stock-option practices and have received requests for information from the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
The average Wall Street bonus grew to an average of $125,500 in 2005, a new record and an increase of 10 percent from 2004, according to a forecast by New York State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is set to propose next week new rules aimed at making executive compensation more transparent to investors, the New York Times reports.
A judge in Alabama has ordered Richard Scrushy, former chief executive of HealthSouth Corp., to repay $47.8 million in bonuses he received from 1997 to 2002, the Associated Press reports.
About three-quarters of employers expect bonus payouts for 2006--based on 2005 performance--to be equal to or more than those paid in the previous year, according to a survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting. Moreover, payouts based on 2006 performance are projected to be even higher.
More than half (51 percent) of employers offer retention bonuses for temporarily
keeping key employees during times of transition, up from 46 percent in 2001
and 36 percent in 1998, according to a survey of 1,030 human resources executives
conducted by Lee Hecht Harrison, a career services company
Twenty-nine percent of chief financial officers expect to offer higher raises
in 2006 than they did in 2005, and 20 percent anticipate giving bigger bonuses,
according to a survey by Robert Half International, Inc., a staffing firm.
