Posts Tagged ‘Executive Compensation’

Goldman Sachs: An Insider Perspective

Posted by • October 27th, 2009 • 2,584 Comments

Goldman Sachs has been in the spotlight as of late, namely due to excessive financial compensation for some of the company’s top brass. Case in point, protesters recently gathered outside the Chicago office to ask the company to donate its entire projected $23 billion bonus pool to prevent every foreclosure in America.

We dug into the company reviews to see how employees are faring, and how they perceive the company. We thought that if anyone was to be offended by the large sums of money given to top executives at the company it would be the employees. We assumed wrong.

In a breakdown of Goldman Sachs’ company rating*, employees report highly of compensation and benefits at the company giving it a 3.9 (satisfied) rating, and also report high marks for the senior leadership. In fact, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein has one of the highest approval ratings among CEOs listed on Glassdoor with an 86% approval rating and 3% disapproval, while the company achieves a 3.8 (satisfied) overall rating. 

Goldman Sachs Reviews – Glassdoor Review

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It’s Lonely At The Top: What Can We Do About Executive Bonuses?

Posted by • April 1st, 2009 • 1 Comment

Bashing the compensation and bonuses of executives has become a household conversation.  Seems like everyone has an opinion on the AIG bonuses that were paid last week and the debate over “who and what was right” will rage on for a few more news cycles.

But from it all, there are some lessons in those payments – and the contracts that allowed them — that would be good for all executives to learn about and carry forward:

Everyone is watching. Sumner Redstone of Viacom is well-quoted saying that, “the further the gorilla climbs up the tree the more you can see of his a**“. Welcome to the life of being a senior executive. With the title and perks, there comes a responsibility to act and respond like a leader.  That means that everyone is watching what you do and what you receive. Becoming finely tuned to what the rest of the company, including what your shareholders, think has always been part of the business, but it’s more important now than ever.  If the rewards don’t match the performance, then you should question whether or not the payments are the right payments and the bonus plan is the right bonus plan. 

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