“No matter how much executive experience someone has, the thing they don’t have is the knowledge of the culture and the cadence of a particular board. You need a mentor or a buddy to pick that up,” said Jan Koors, senior managing director, Pearl Meyer.

"Community banks need to consider the age and demographics of future leaders they are trying to attract and retain and design compensation based on those needs," says Karen Butcher, managing director, Pearl Meyer.

“We saw inflation go through the roof, and that put pressure on executive compensation because as prices were going up, it was natural for boards to say, ‘How is this affecting the market, and what do we need to do so that we are remaining relevant?’” said Alexander Yaffe, managing director, Pearl Meyer.

"To recognize and/or reward employees when funds are limited, companies may assign higher-ranking titles or designations that are more 'creative' and 'flashier,'" said Rebecca Toman, vice president of the survey business unit at Pearl Meyer.

“Our data indicate that companies are increasingly reliant on job titles as an important component of their [talent] strategy,” said Rebecca Toman, vice president of the survey business unit at Pearl Meyer.

“If the CEO adds a lot of shareholder value through decisions that he or she is making resulting in a high return to shareholders, then boards are going to want to make sure that they are rewarding that individual appropriately to ensure that there's alignment,” said Ed Steinhoff, managing director, Pearl Meyer.

“In 2020 and 2021, [tech] employees were capturing that moment to win large pay increases, but now into ’23, we see the pendulum swinging in significant force back the other way,” said Aalap Shah, managing director, Pearl Meyer.”

"We see the most eye-popping numbers in the significant effort to reward and retain employees through the use of titles where 37% of our respondents are ‘actively applying’ titles to retain key employees, up from 27% in 2018," said Rebecca Toman, vice president of the survey business unit at Pearl Meyer.

“Frontline managers are going to have to become much more facile with their ability to explain why the compensation programs work the way they do,” said Jan Koors, senior managing director.

“There’s no question that salaries for hospital executives have accelerated in recent years, but that has partly been driven by high turnover among hospital executives,” said Alexander Yaffe, managing director, Pearl Meyer.

“Calculating compensation actually paid (CAP) has been the most arduous part of the disclosure in year one and recent [SEC] guidance failed to adequately address this critical component,” noted Deborah Lifshey, managing director for Pearl Meyer.

“Some companies are reluctant to push up [executive] pay during a period where mass layoffs, especially in tech, have become commonplace,” said Aalap Shah, managing director, Pearl Meyer.