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| Volume 8, Issue 8 |
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In This Issue:
 CFO pay rise outpulls CEO comp
 How to be a freelance CFO: 10 tips
Employment contracts: How to cut the best deal
Sloppy spreadsheets: [best of the worst]
CFOs' fuel fears rise to join consumer worries
 9 steps to negotiating any workplace conflict
Checklist: Top reference-checking questions
 America's growing managerial pay gap
 Recognition @ work: Why 40 percent of employees leave
 Employers feel workers' gas pains
 Sky-high oil will make U.S. go broke
Using employees' E-mail against them
How to shorten your work week
Acing the wine list
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CFO pay rise outpulls CEO comp
Despite recent market turmoil and news of big corporate losses, finance professionals have nothing to lose. On the contrary, they’ve maneuvered to pocket
bigger paychecks with the average executive recording a salary hike of 5 percent this year.
Compare this with CEO pay growth of a mere 1.3 percent during the same period. “The analysis this year showed that the rate of growth of CFO pay was over three times faster than the rate of growth for
CEOs, says David Chun, CEO Equilar, an executive compensation-benchmarking firm based in Redwood Shores, Calif. According to Chun the faster growth in CFO pay is mostly due to...
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How to be a freelance CFO: 10 tips
Despite the relative job insecurity inherent in operating a solo financial practice, going freelance offers flexibility and freedom — to choose the kind of work you do, the people you work with, and the time you spend doing it.
Here are 10 things you should know before venturing out on your own...
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Employment contracts: How to cut the best deal
You've negotiated debt covenants, mergers, and supply contracts — but do you know what should be included, and struck, from your employment contract? Among the first
things to think about when reviewing a new job offer is what's going to happen when you leave the job.
To be sure, termination clauses are often the most-negotiated elements of employment contracts. They can also be deal busters. Consider a recent situation that pitted a highly sought-after CEO against a hard-nosed chairman of a real estate development
firm. They had a hand-shake agreement for the CEO to leave his current job and join the developer. The coveted executive was regarded as the number-one candidate in the entire region, and potentially a key driver of the company's future success. The
chairman, who prided himself on being a savvy negotiator, told lawyers to include a harsh termination clause in the employment contract that was being drawn up for the new CEO. By the chairman's lights, the clause would serve as a bargaining chip he
could use to whittle down his original lucrative offer. Among other things, the chairman had promised the future CEO a huge supplemental retirement benefit because he
was leaving a lot of money on the table at his existing job. The lawyers balked at the idea as risky and unnecessary, but they eventually acquiesced to the boss's demand. As a result...
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Sloppy spreadsheets: [best of the worst]
The recent detailing of "Spreadsheet Worst Practices" on CFO.com clearly tapped deep-seated emotions among our readers, who shared their reactions in dozens of comments and E-mail messages and offered their own pet peeves from the world of finance.
Today we present a "best of the worst" selection from readers, from formatting faux pas to basic ignorance of good spreadsheet mechanics. The authors of our original article agreed to provide commentary on reader observations, and to suggest some
possible corrections. Shahid Ansari is a professor of management accounting at Babson College, while Richard Block is a Babson adjunct professor of management accounting, as well a CFO Leadership partner at Tatum LLC. Also adding her thoughts is accounting
professor Janice Bell, who holds the Weiner Family Term Chair at Babson. "We highlighted six major areas where spreadsheet problems arise," said Block with a laugh as he reviewed the reader contributions. "Guess what: There are many more."...
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CFOs' fuel fears rise to join consumer worries
Anxiety is high among finance chiefs in the United States, Europe, and Asia in the new Duke University/CFO study. But glimmers of optimism may be starting to shine through.
Soaring fuel costs have joined sagging consumer demand in a virtual tie as top concerns of CFOs, according to the latest Duke University/CFO magazine Global Business Outlook Survey.It is the first time that fuel costs have risen to that level, equaling
the consumer related worries that for several quarters have been the top plague of finance chiefs. And in the face of rising oil-related bills, finance executives are not standing by passively. Nearly half of the firms polled in this second-quarter
survey say they would begin to pass fuel-cost hikes through to customers by raising prices. And those prices are expected to go up by...
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9 steps to negotiating any workplace conflict
Conflict happens in all corners of the workplace. But if issues aren't settled, bad things can happen: Good people quit, morale can plummet and, sometimes, violence can erupt. But you don't need to become a certified mediator to settle disputes.
You just need to understand some basics about human behavior, practice the fine art of paying attention and offer yourself as a neutral party who wants to resolve the problem. Whether you're a manager or not, you're forced into the situation of having
to negotiate conflicts between co-workers, customers and even friends and family. Here are nine insights and tricks of the trade...
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Checklist: Top reference-checking questions
Having a list of references won’t do you any good if you can’t get them to open up to you about a job applicant.
Download our list of the nine best questions to get references talking...
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America's growing managerial pay gap
More evidence has emerged to suggest that throwing money at workers may not be the best way to get the most out of them. Which is just as well – as the pay gap between managers and employees in the U.S widened sharply last year.
Research by consultancy Hay has concluded that employers on this year's Fortune's Most Admired Companies list paid an average of five per cent less in salaries than their peers. At the same time, a separate study by the consultancy has suggested that the
pay gap between managers and workers in the U.S is growing at the third fastest rate of any country in the world. Overall, Hay's analysis of the Fortune list found the highest performing organisations, despite paying lower salaries, rewarded staff more
effectively and were better at retaining staff, so saving on recruitment costs. The best-performing firms used higher levels of bonuses and incentives, especially for more senior jobs, and in many cases were found to be twice as effective at rewarding
top performers than their rivals. Companies that made the Most Admired list had not just stumbled on the formula for making employee reward programmes work more
effectively, stressed Hay Group associate director, Colin Evans. "The key differentiator between higher and lesser performing companies is the implementation of...
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Recognition @ work: Why 40 percent of employees leave
Christi L. Gibson is the executive director of Recognition Professionals International, formerly known as National Association for Employee Recognition(NAER). She has been with RPI since 2001, and has been published in
newspapers and periodicals, and interviewed on both ABC and FOX News. She can be reached via e-mail at Christi@recognition.org.
If your turnover ratios are through the roof, then it is time to review your appreciation policies.
Recognizing your employees is imperative in order to retain your top performers to help lead and grow a strong organization. It will ultimately increase your bottom line. A recent survey of 10,000 employees from Fortune 1000 organizations found 40
percent identified lack of recognition as a major reason in leaving a job. And since 65 percent of Americans said they received no recognition in the workplace (according to Gallup), clearly, organizations are not listening to their employees. Further, data
on exit surveys continuously reinforces that employees don't leave companies, they leave managers. Side by side, these findings scream trouble. Solvable trouble that can be a force in profitability.To be sure your employees will share their "it came to me
in the middle of the night" bright-light idea, and not hand-carry it to your competitor...
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Employers feel workers' gas pains
As gas prices skyrocket, some workers are changing jobs to be closer to home, while others won't even apply to ones that require a long commute. Experts say employers
must develop strategies to deal with these threats -- and many companies are already taking action.
With prices at the pump surging past $4 a gallon, employers need to wake up and smell the gas fumes, experts warn. New surveys are showing that for many workers, commuting has become so expensive that they're considering switching jobs¿while others are
turning down jobs that are too far away. But the surveys have also found that a growing number of employers are responding to the challenge with measures such as four-day workweeks, increased telecommuting, employee carpools and subsidized public
transportation. "Many employees are beginning to wonder whether the commute downtown or across town is really worth it to them," says John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray and Christmas, a Chicago-based global outplacement consultancy. A survey of HR
executives at 100 companies, conducted by the firm in May, found 34 percent reporting that job candidates had turned down offers because of the cost of long commutes. And high gas prices could be the trigger for many people who have already been thinking
about changing jobs, says Challenger. "Every time they get gas, it hits them," he says. "It's a recurring reminder." A real threat to employers is...
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Sky-high oil will make U.S. go broke
Stratospheric crude oil prices precipitated by speculation are wreaking havoc on the U.S. economy.
Based on income tax withholdings data from the Daily Treasury Statement, the wages of all U.S. workers on payrolls were unchanged on a year-over-year basis in the past two weeks (Friday, June 6 through Thursday, June 19) and rose 1.1% year-over-year in the
past four weeks (Friday, May 23 through Thursday, June 19). Both of those growth rates are well below the 2.8% year-over-year in May, and they are consistent with an economy that is contracting sharply. As long as oil prices stay above $120 per barrel, the
economy is more likely to slow than strengthen, and companies are not likely to announce much float shrink. With real wages falling, large numbers of jobs being shed, gas prices exceeding $4 per gallon almost everywhere and home prices falling about 1%
per month nationally, this year is going to be tough for American consumers. Believe it or not, there is plenty of oil in the world. What is in short supply are investors willing to go short oil futures. The open interest on oil futures
worldwide is 2.6 million contracts. With oil prices at $135 per barrel, each contract is worth $135,000. To control $135,000 of oil, investors have to put up no more than $10,000. [ What is happening now is not demand destruction, it is a financial
disaster. The U.S. consumes 21 million barrels of per day. At $135 per barrel, the U.S. spends $1.0 trillion per year on oil, which is equal to 15% of the $6.8 trillion in take-home pay of everyone who pays taxes. If oil prices rose to $200 per barrel,
the U.S. would spend $1.5 trillion per year on oil, which would be equal to 22% of take-home pay. Moreover, those percentages of 15% and 22% do not even include the cost of coal or natural gas. In other words, the U.S. will be broke long before oil prices
hit $200 per barrel, and the rest of the world would be sure to follow. Another way to put the oil crisis into perspective is to ...]
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Using employees' E-mail against them
Two Bear Stearns executives learned a hard lesson this week:
If you're going to say something inappropriate, don't write it in an e-mail. An online exchange between fund managers Matthew Tannin and Ralph Cioffi questioned the performance of certain funds in which they were investing clients' money. But their
public comments told a different story, and now those e-mails are the smoking gun in the civil and criminal cases against them. If convicted of conspiracy and securities fraud, the two could face jail time and heavy fines. Will employees ever learn that
anything they write in an e-mail can and will be used against them? "This stuff is obtainable, and it's difficult to deny once it's printed out," says Josh Bowers, a labor lawyer in Washington, D.C. Of course, we're not encouraging you to behave
illegally offline, either. But the risk of getting caught online is high. Employees send hundreds of e-mails daily from their work computer, and experts say they too often broach subjects that should be avoided. The most common? Sex. Many employees
write e-mails or forward jokes with sexual overtones. On the one hand, forwarded jokes are usually meant to be harmless. The danger comes, however...
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How to shorten your work week
It's summer time, and outsourcing certain onerous tasks is just one way to shorten your work week and enjoy the extra hours of sunshine.
Timothy Ferriss' best-seller The 4-Hour Workweek lays out 11 nuggets of advice to up your productivity and spend less time cooped up in the office...
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Acing the wine list
Wine knowledge isn’t just a social skill any more. It’s a powerful tool for today’s CEOs, providing leverage in business entertaining. The Wall Street Journal observed that "Wine at business meals is a skirmish in a boardroom war, played out
on a linen table cloth. Your handling of wine, whether ordering it or just drinking it, matters more than you think to most clients. Sometimes people even see your comfort or expertise with wine not as a comment on your knowledge, but on your character."
This is a bit strong, but clearly a minimal knowledge of wine is becoming as critical as knowing what fork to use....
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