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Company Culture, Work/Life Balance Win Exec Talent for Private Cos.
In a press release from PricewaterhouseCooper’s (PwC) about the results of its Trendsetter Barometer, PwC said 55% of private company CEOs surveyed rank the current market for executive talent as “competitive,” and 33% rank it as “highly competitive.” However, 59% of respondents said they do not feel disadvantaged when competing against public companies.
Private company CEOs said their advantages in the market for executive talent include:
- Company culture – 92%,
- Organizational structure – 73%
- Work/Life balance – 72%,
- Geographic location – 60%
- Corporate responsibility – 58%, and
- Type of business – 57%.
When it comes to pay, private companies tend to lean more on cash than equity. Forty-three percent of “Trendsetter” firms provide both equity and cash compensation, while 57% provide cash only, according to the press release. The survey found the typical pay mix for private company executives is:
- Base salary – 73.64% of total compensation,
- Annual incentives – 15.76%,
- Cash-based long-term incentives – 5.49%, and
- Equity-based long-term incentives – 5.11%.
Half of firms benchmarking against public companies said they are providing similar levels of cash-based incentives as public firms, but only 28% said they are providing competitive equity-based incentives. While 69% of all respondents offer an annual incentive of some kind, only 43% offer long-term incentive-based compensation to their employees. Of those, 69% offer equity-based incentives and 54% offer cash-based incentives.
Similar to public companies, the survey found that privately-held companies offer a mix of stock options, restricted stock, phantom stock, and other equity vehicles as long-term incentive compensation. The most popular was stock options, offered by 58%.
PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Trendsetter Barometer tracks the business issues of privately-held companies identified in the media as the fastest-growing U.S. businesses. It incorporates the views of 302 CEOs interviewed between January 23, 2007 and April 30, 2007.
The PwC Barometer surveys can be found here .