“Whether it’s part of the formal [executive incentive pay] program or not, demonstrating how management has performed through the pivot [because of Covid-19] is really going to be important to determine how incentive programs should pay out, if at all,” said Aalap Shah, managing director, Pearl Meyer.

"According to a recent survey from Pearl Meyer and Women Corporate Directors, 35% of boards discuss succession planning for the CEO and his or her direct reports, 20% discuss succession regarding the direct reports to the CEO’s direct reports, and 5% discuss succession planning three or more levels below the CEO."

“Now more than ever, we need transformative leaders who can engage a highly diverse workforce in new ways,” said David Swinford, president and CEO of Pearl Meyer. “The compensation committee has a significant role to play with its increasing responsibility for leadership development, in addition to rewards and incentives.”

“People generally want to hire compensation consultants who will fit well with their team—the comp committee coupled with HR and senior executives,” said David Swinford, president and CEO of Pearl Meyer.

“There is a growing interest in linking pay to diversity goals; whether this will have a material impact on how much compensation they’re making is hard to tell,” said Deb Lifshey, managing director, Pearl Meyer.

“I’m not sure there’s a formula [for cutting executive pay] that says, ‘If we do this, then we can keep X employees, but I think it is more of an internal solidarity and fairness issue about how you’re treating all levels of the organization,” said Beth Florin, a managing director at Pearl Meyer.

“Compensation committees are taking a holistic view of the downturn and having healthy conversations about the impact paying executives for relative performance will have on shareholders, employees, reputation, and culture,” said Peter Lupo, managing director, Pearl Meyer.

“There was a dramatic increase in nonfinancial metrics in 2019, and because of the impact of COVID-19, I suspect a lot of metrics in annual incentive plans will be nonfinancial moving forward,” said Mike Esser, managing director at Pearl Meyer.

“If executives don’t react in a way of camaraderie [because of COVID-19] that’s going to be very telling about the kind of company you are,” said Aalap Shah, managing director of Pearl Meyer.

“I think compensation committees are going to have some serious and difficult conversations about to what extent they adjust performance to take COVID-19 into account,” says Peter Lupo, senior managing director and head of the Atlantic region for Pearl Meyer.

Consultant Pearl Meyer found that 6% of companies have reduced or eliminated employer contributions or matches to their retirement plan, and 16% are considering it.

“If boards don’t stop to think about what can unintentionally happen by not adjusting their own pay, they could face increased reputational risk,” said Jan Koors, managing director.