Previous CAHRS Working Groups
Executive Pay Working Groups: 2006 - 2007
Over the 2006 – 2007 year, CAHRS had three productive “working group” meetings on Executive Compensation. The meetings were started out of partner interest in recent changes in executive compensation disclosure rules in the United States and in recent changes made by the Financial Accounting Standard Board on options expensing.
The first session was held in New York City in September 2006 and hosted by Pam Kimmet at Bear Stearns. The second meeting was held in San Francisco in December 2006 and was hosted by Alma Nikl at Sun Microsystems. The final session was hosted by John Bradley at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York City, in June of 2007. We are grateful to these partner firms for generously providing support and space for the working groups.
A variety of subjects were covered over the three sessions. Subjects included basics of the new disclosure rules including details and examples from firms, options, restricted stock, performance shares, relative compensation, Sarbanes-Oxley, corporate governance, discussions of stakeholders and the press, whether new rules are changing the mix of pay, ownership requirements, peer groups, perquisites, selecting a consultant, new demands on board members and compensation committee chairs, board recruitment and retention, diversity, and the executive pay horizon. Discussions were frank and open and many ideas were shared across firms. More than twenty-five CAHRS partner firms sent at least one representative to participate in the discussion. Several attended multiple meetings. Participating firms included some that are not publicly traded (so they do not have to disclose compensation) and European-based firms. Participating firms included Aetna, American Water, Aon Corporation, Bausch & Lomb, Bear Stearns, Capital One, CIT Group, Danaher Corporation, Dell, Diageo, Dow Jones, Eaton, Fidelity Investments, General Mills, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Northrup Grumman, Pacific Sunwear of California, PNC, Verizon, Shell, and Sun Microsystems.
The sessions were led by Kevin Hallock, Director of Research in CAHRS and Professor of Labor Economics and of Human Resource Studies.
Talent Management Working Groups: 2005 – 2006
Ensuring that the right people with the right competencies are in the right place at the right time is essential for organizational success and one of the critical HR responsibilities. Of special concern is the internal development of future leaders throughout the management levels in order to navigate the complexities and exploit the opportunities of the global business environment.
To begin to understand how human resource managers are addressing the issues and challenges associated with managing talent in global, multinational corporations, a team of researchers from CAHRS conducted a series of working groups to identify the best practices, policies, and strategies for managing talent. In a series of four meetings, we conducted focus groups with a total of 35 human resource executives from 29 American and European companies. Our findings highlight the way that these organizations define talent and some of the key issues that these organizations are facing regarding talent management. Our findings also begin to identify the means through which these organizations are achieving success in the talent management arena.
Chris Collins, Associate Professor of Human Resource Studies and Director of ILR Executive Education lead working groups on Talent Management at several venues in the United States and Europe. The sessions were used as background for Spring 2006 partner meetings in Ithaca, NY and Paris, France.
Functional Human Resource Working Groups: 2004 – 2005
We heard that a number of CAHRS partners were focusing efforts on building human resource functional excellence. In response, we conducted a research study on human resource functional excellence, and invited partner firms to these working groups. These individuals over a 12 month period met with peers from other CAHRS partner firms and shared and learned about partner companies’ approaches to building human resource functional excellence. The research project resulted in a faculty written paper integrating the various best practices identified during the course of the study. We believed that the participants benefited greatly from developing a network with their peers and learned what their peer companies are doing.
A total of 38 human resource executives from 27 American and European companies participated in this working group. Patrick Wright, William J. Conaty GE Professor of Strategic Human Resources and Director of CAHRS, led the Functional Human Resource Working Groups.