Compensation Strategies to Attract, Retain and Motivate Millennials
Distinguishing between retirement plans for a bank’s older executives and other key high performers and shorter-term incentives for its younger millennials, who are the bank leaders of the future, continues to be an important strategy for boards of directors. Compensation committees are willing to provide some type of mid-term incentive plan as a retention strategy focused on their younger workers. Boards also want to have both short- and long-term, performance-driven plans in place that are aligned with shareholder interests and retaining their key officers.
As with most employees, effective compensation plans and performance management programs can help attract, retain and motivate millennials. Providing a competitive base salary may not be at the top of their priority list, but certainly being rewarded for performance is important.
The next generation of leaders have been impacted by the recession, both from watching their relatives endure job loss and financial stress and from experiencing the post-recession economy directly. They are also the largest group carrying student loan debt. As a result, money is very important to them and while they may not be worrying about retirement, they are focusing on shorter term financial needs.
While millennials have essentially the same financial needs as the generations preceding them, their time horizon to retirement can be 30-plus years or more, which is too far into the future for them to focus on when faced with immediate financial planning decisions, like retiring student debt, purchasing a home and providing for their children’s education.
Nonqualified benefit plans including deferred compensation plans can be an effective tool for attracting and retaining most key bank performers—both those focused on retirement as well as more interim financial needs—because of their design flexibility. According to the American Bankers Association (ABA) 2016 Compensation and Benefits Survey, 64.5 percent of respondents offered some type of nonqualified deferred compensation plan for top management (chief executive officer, C-Level, executive vice president).
For this next generation of leaders, boards should consider a type of plan that allows for in-service distributions timed to coincide with events such as a child entering college. Plan payments made to the participant while still employed can be made at some future point such as three, five or 10 years.
These plans could be used in lieu of stock plans with a similar time duration and are important to younger leaders looking to shorter, more mid-term financial needs in a long-term incentive plan. Plans with provisions linking plan benefits to the long-term success of the bank can help increase bank performance and shareholder value as well as to reward key employees for longer-term performance. Defined as either a specific dollar amount or percentage of salary, bank contributions are discretionary or dependent on meeting budget or other performance goals. Interest can be credited to the account balance with a rate tied to either an external index or an internal index such as bank return on equity.
The plan can also include a provision that the account balance, or a portion thereof, is forfeited if the key employee goes to a competitor. In addition, it is typical to see events such as a change in control or disability accelerate vesting to 100 percent.
Let’s look at two examples, one for a retirement-based plan and the other for an in-service distribution to help pay for college expenses.
Assume that the bank contributes 8 percent of a $125,000 salary for a 37-year-old employee each year until age 65. At age 65, the participant will have $1,370,000 in total benefits, assuming a crediting rate equal to the bank’s return on assets, with an annual payment of $130,000 per year for 15 years. This same participant could also have had part of the benefit paid for out via in-service distributions to accommodate college expenses for two children. Assume there are two children ages three and seven and a desire to have $25,000 per year distributed for four years, for each child. Thus, these annual $25,000 distributions would be paid out when the employee was between the ages of 49 and 56. The remaining portion available for retirement would be an annual benefit of $78,000 for 15 years beginning at age 65.
Regardless of the participant’s distribution timing goals, both types of defined contribution plans can be tied to performance goals. The bank contribution percentage to each participant’s account could be based on some defined performance goal. Again, the ABA’s 2016 Compensation and Benefits Survey results showed that bonus amounts were based on several factors including: 85.6 percent bank; 74.9 percent individual; and 26 percent department/group. Aligning the bank’s strategic plan goals with the participant’s incentive plan provides a better outcome for both shareholder and participant.
In addition, many banks have implemented defined benefit type supplemental retirement plans as a way to retain and reward key executives. These plans can also be structured as performance based plans.
Regardless of a participant’s time horizon, it is important to reward both your older and younger leaders with compensation that is meaningful to them and will help them accomplish their personal financial objectives, while balancing the long-term interests of shareholders.