CHRO Compensation and Fairness: What a Difference a Year Makes | HRO Today

HRO Today published its second annual CHRO Compensation study earlier this year. It examined publicly available data on the Fortune 500 to gather compensation data on 113 senior HR executives from those firms, a 23% valid sample. They segmented the data into four bands (Fortune 50, Fortune 100, Fortune 200, and Fortune 500) and explored correlations to salary, total cash compensation, and non-cash compensation (stock options and grants). The factors also included market capitalization, earnings per share (EPS), earnings before income tax, depreciation, amortization (EBITDA), and total employee headcount. Among the insights: 1) Within the Fortune 50, males’ base salary exceeds females’ by 54%, or over $700,000; however, the total average compensation pay gap is only 2.5% more for males than females. Within the Fortune 500, males’ base salary is 21% higher. 2) Among firms in the Fortune 50, statistically significant correlations (.80) were found between CHRO compensation and company performance factors. Other ideas are discussed.