Where do you begin? It is all so overwhelming! In a matter of weeks, your entire world has turned upside down. Your typical daily routines no longer exist, and you are frantically trying to accept the new normal and move forward in uncharted territory

On March 18, 2020, the President signed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). This legislation changes the way employers handle Paid Leave Time and Paid Time Off during the coronavirus pandemic. The law will go into effect on April 1, 2020, and aims at helping ease the burden of employers having to adhere to the new law (FFCRA).

The decisions you make now may still have an impact ten years from now. It is now obvious that only last year we could not have accurately predicted things ten months in advance. Give yourself a break and don’t hold yourself to accurately guessing the next ten years. Over the next several weeks many companies will need to make uncomfortable decisions regarding their equity compensation programs and the staff who benefits from them. Keeping those decisions smaller and simpler is a good way to look like a master in the future.

Since the rise in popularity of equity compensation during the 1980s, we have experienced only a few moments of volatility similar to that of the past four weeks. The experts at FutureSense have been there for major events like the semiconductor crash in the early 1990s, the Dotcom crash as we left the last century, the telecom crash a few years later, September 11, and the financial crash to end the last decade. Each provides valuable experience and insight into how the best companies navigate an extremely volatile market.

The paid leave law is changing with the passage of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act Bill. BlueFire HR is here to help your company navigate all the changes and how they could affect your business.

Equity compensation can be trickier than many in our “set it and forget it” society look for in an incentive tool. Executed well the results are sublime. But use too much or too little of something and the result may be far worse than you can imagine. Old school equity plans can be viewed as a pressure cooker, more modern designs are more like an Instant Pot. The differences are critical in times like these when markets are willy-nilly and compensation plans are under extreme pressure to perform.

As an employer, you have probably been tossing and turning each night wondering how the Coronavirus or COVID-19 will impact your workforce, your revenue, and what should you do next?

BlueFire HR by FutureSense has put together this handy guide to assist in this endeavor. And rest assured ALL sources have been vetted and verified.

If awards and grants are unvested, your employees have no flexibility. Even if stock options are vested, many employees may not have the money to exercise them. Even if you are a public company, your stock price may have been battered enough that exercising options, is not a great option. It’s time to prepare for the next equity Compensation Pandemic.

Often companies come to me with a request to design a compensation program, philosophy or market analysis hoping it will fix a critical problem in the company. Sometimes the company needs people to perform better. Sometimes they want employees to act and/or feel more like owners or investors. Let’s be clear, regardless of the issue, compensation CANNOT fix it, at least not in the long run.

This post is about the level 3 Accountant, the entry-level Engineer, the Customer Service Representative and every other position that is basically seen as ubiquitous across the majority of companies. While the job descriptions and market matches for these people are very similar regardless of the employer, the people themselves very widely.

In cases where there is a bright line between good and bad, we hope that everyone will choose the right path quickly. When it comes to pay trends and market data the  line is not as bright, nor the negative consequences as personal, perhaps that is why I have seen so many cases of “we just did what the data said.” Sometimes data is bad. Sometimes it is wrong. Often, we can just feel how wrong it is. Other times it only becomes noticeable when someone else points it out.

Executive pay is effective and problematic because every company and executive is different. Yet, somehow, every magical fix for executive compensation includes a set of rules that will work for the tens of thousands of unique companies and individuals that will be impacted. Let’s set the facts down clearly. No one “solution” will work for the majority of companies. There is no “silver bullet”. 

Loss aversion is something you probably want to be careful about when you are an early-stage company looking for extreme growth. Alternately, it can be a safe haven for companies with a more conservative outlook, or those going through troubled times. The palpable feeling of having something you “own” taken away by the company you are leaving can be far different than the annoying “forfeiture” of a virtual unit or an underwater stock option.

As a small business we know you don’t know human resources (HR), but do you need someone to discuss employee relations issues, operational decisions that impact staff, or simply need some direction from an executive …

Retailers once again are promoting layaway. Budgets have tightened and credit cards have become increasingly used for subsistence. Layaway offers companies a way to get a committed customer before an item is delivered. It allows them to collect a bit of revenue stream with every payment adding to the stickiness of the relationship. How does this apply to your pay programs?

Some of you may have seen this recent viral video discussing things that we believe to be true, but are actually made up. The video got me thinking about things compensation professionals believe that have little, or no, foundation in reality. Here we go…

It’s a candidate’s job market! A great candidate experience is a must have as part of your talent acquisition and planning strategy

Everyone gets an equal chance to be part of the boat. (Anything less is inequality.) This lets everyone have a better chance of reaching their goal. Equity is the sail. Anyone can choose to be the sail but only some will and can do this. The boat and the sail get to the same goal equally. Those who are the sail equitably receive a bit more.

As adults, we learn that to be a leader, you must worry less about fitting in and more about doing what is right for a given situation. As compensation professionals, we are constantly asked to build a balance between two worlds: the world of homogenization and that of innovation.

As 2019 wraps up, BlueFire HR (A FutureSense Solution) has compiled a checklist of year-end items that should be addressed