Benchmarking your peers to design compensation and benefits for your executives

As the dad of two awesome kids, I know firsthand that parenthood can be, at times, a tricky road to navigate. When making important decisions about raising kids, it can be helpful to know what other parents are doing. But, in the end, our kids and their needs are unique, so we ultimately must look within and privately determine what is best for our own families and not rely solely on what others are doing when making these important and personal decisions.

You could think of designing compensation and benefits for your credit union executives in a similar fashion. You want to provide fair compensation to these valued employees, but how do you determine what is fair? What do you use as a baseline? One tool available to credit unions is the 2014 NAFCU-BFB Survey of Executive Compensation and Benefits. But remember, as with your own family and kids, your credit union and executives are unique. So use the valuable information from this survey as a guide, but base your final decisions on your own credit union and your unique employees.

What is the 2014 NAFCU-BFB Survey of Executive Compensation and Benefits?

First introduced in 2007, the NAFCU-BFB Survey was created to better understand the compensation and benefits for the top executives of federal credit unions. The sponsors–NAFCU, NAFCU Services Corporation, and Burns-Fazzi, Brock—envisioned a service to help federal credit unions with the decisions they face regarding executive compensation and benefits. All federal credit unions are invited to participate in the survey, whether they are NAFCU members or not. For this reason, the findings are representative of all federal credit unions. Clark Research Associates conduct this annual study. They collect the data, analyze the results, and present the findings in this summary report.

For those wanting specific insights from this year’s survey, NAFCU Services and Burns-Fazzi Brock will present a free live webinar on Wednesday, August 20. Join Jack Clark of Clark Research Associates as he reviews findings from the 2014 survey, and explains the best practices for applying these principles to your own credit union. Jack has managed the survey on behalf of Burns-Fazzi, Brock for several years, so he has a deep understanding of its intricacies and trends. If you are unable to attend, you may still register to receive a recording of the webinar and presentation slides.