We take off where other firms finish

The failure rates for the Russell 3000 (3.5%) and S&P 500 (4.4%) have remained high throughout the year, and are above the failure rates at this time last year.

We analyzed 431 companies with an initial public offering (IPO) in calendar-year 2021 (excluding SPAC mergers). Here are our findings.

Moving forward, we anticipate that ESG metrics will continue to become more prevalent among S&P 500 companies before hitting an eventual plateau.

The historically high S&P 500 failure rate is likely to remain through year-end, while the Russell 3000 failure rate has stayed steady since June.

We conducted a pulse survey covering planned FY22 merit budgets and ongoing employee retention challenges and actions.

Our research in 2021 indicates that 28% of companies included DE&I as a metric in executive incentive design. This report evaluates the level of specificity disclosed around DE&I metrics for a representative sample of those companies.

The study offers total compensation figures as well as details on base salaries and incentive-related elements of a typical compensation package.

2020 had a profound impact on corporate governance and responsibility, with the pandemic shining a spotlight on health and safety and the national focus on racial justice drawing sharp attention to diversity and inclusion in corporate America.

Corporate boards of directors face a more acute set of challenges in setting their compensation than they have in recent years. Until recently, a primary focus was the risk of shareholder litigation challenging allegedly excessive director compensation. That concern has receded as many companies have taken steps to mitigate the risk of lawsuits.

Given growing stakeholder focus on Human Capital Management (HCM), we sought to understand how companies would approach the HCM disclosure within proxy statements this year. Our study of a sample of proxies filed in December 2020 and January 2021 offers an early proxy season preview of HCM disclosure practices.

Over the fall of 2020, we collected data on ESG & incentives from the Fortune 200. We excerpted from that data a subset of companies that have included a Diversity and Inclusion metric in their incentive designs.

From March 1, 2020 to February 13, 2021, 270 Russell 3000 companies announced structural changes to their in-flight and/ or go-forward incentive plans