Compensation and benefits

I was just a year out of college, and interviewing for a sales assistant position at PaineWebber. One of my prospective bosses offered me $24,000. I countered...

Using the results of a survey of 380 companies in 34 industries, this author examines three basic types of compensation plans: salary, commission, and combination (salary plus commission). Most companies in the study favored a combination plan, but such plans have some disadvantages to offset their obvious attractiveness. The author sets out the possible reasons […]

Working parenthood was hard before Covid-19--now it's an all-out crisis. In "A Way Forward for Working Parents," Daisy Dowling argues that it's time to...

We all expect to be judged on our merits at work—to be recognized for our accomplishments and our unique talents, insights, and efforts. But does that actually happen? A variety of recent research by business, psychology, and sociology scholars offers a window into women’s collective experiences in the workplace, confirming some intuitive notions (that men […]

Four striking findings from a new study on compensation.

For decades the difficulty of motivating salespeople has been frustrating sales and marketing managers. To the most effective ones, two things are clear: one, the job is difficult; two, there is no one simple solution. Believing that “good salespeople are born, not made,” many managers recognize that recruiting is important. Others holding that “if you […]

Burnout, though not new, worsened during the pandemic. In "Beyond Burned Out," Jennifer Moss presents new research showing the true depths of burnout...

Plus three reasons they quit.

Tom Bennett, owner of a growing high-tech enterprise with sales of $30 million, has decided to go public. His ratios are right and his product is good, but the fine points of his strategy are not quite in place. Early Monday morning before the regular staff meeting, he sits lost in thought about product image, […]

(Editors' note: Follow all of HBR.org's Davos reports) This morning at Davos I presented the top CEO study we unveiled in the January/February issue of...

It's gotta be more than golf and bingo.

"Please don't tell me that I need to have a baby to have this time off." Those words were still ringing in the ears of Jessica Gonon an hour after a tense...

“If you’re unhappy at work, you’re probably unhappy in life.”

Start with pay flexibility, budget management support, and retirement planning.

A survey showed that CEOs worldwide are making exponentially more money than people think they should.

Why are we biased against investing in people and the planet?

Five questions to help companies align ESG priorities with executive compensation.

A good plot, good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot, very good friends. Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part I Special Report When trying to assess performance, there is no business function top executives worry about more than marketing. Most of them look at the marketers in their companies as something between vacuum-cleaner salespeople […]

The verdict is in, and it serves as a convenient end point for the era of shareholder capitalism: Say-on-pay has been a dud. Fewer than 100 corporations, about 1.5%, lost these mandatory but nonbinding votes on executive pay practices. Most got well over 90% in favor. Say-on-pay may have led some to modify their practices […]

Research shows that unaddressed pay gaps will push veteran talent to find new jobs.