Rewarded by Rewarding Others

Today I initially wanted to draw everyone’s attention towards managing your compensation planning process within our changing economic situation dealing with high and growing inflation in Europe and the US while slowing global economy. I wanted to draw your awareness to differentiate your salary budget into separate pots for price rise and structural adjustments, new hires or promotions. However, these days I want to rather focus on personal values.

As we all follow the devastating world news leaving us powerless and paralyzed we should think what we are able to positively contribute for a better world. How WE can turn compensation into reward and reward others. There is a slim line between compensation and rewards. I receive compensation as a tradeoff for performance while rewards I would receive for anything that is linked to me as an individual. If we cannot directly affect the horrors in Ukraine, we can start in our own surrounding helping others that need support kicking off a positive domino effect to make our world a better place to live. When reading the news about exorbitant #executivecompensation payouts of CHF 11 Mio. for the UBS CEO or CHF 4 Mio. for the Credit-Suisse CEO (combined with a devastating 2021 financial result) I feel that individuals would be mostly rewarded by rewarding others with their compensation. It reminds me of a conversation I had with Iqbal Khan, Co-President UBS Global WM, about executive fair pay. I did propose him to donate a fixed percentage of each executive’s pay to charity resulting in a substantial contribution doing good to the world and at the same time improving the individual’s and company’s image. So far it did not happen.

There are many examples of noble individuals that could inspire us. For me it is my childhood movie hero “Spartacus” Kirk Douglas who donated his entire wealth to charity. He said to his friends that probably all those human beings that got his contributions were happy but mostly he thanked all of them that gave him the opportunity to help and make him happy; rewarded by rewarding others.