How do your executive benefits and compensation stack up against your peers?

Whenever I play golf (rarely) I’m told that I’m only competing against myself. Odds are it is my foursomes’ way of making me feel better about shooting my weight instead of some much more reasonable number.  No issue there, we’re all just trying to improve our respective game – but some perspective is helpful, even if only to set goals and understand what best practices are.

The same can be said about executive compensation and benefits – it is not a competition, but it is helpful to know how your peers compare. The key difference is that structure also counts when it comes to compensation and benefits.  For example, do credit unions in your peer group just provide 457 plans, or do they also have split-dollar plans?

But compensation and benefits are a private and very personal issue, and one that most people are reluctant to ask or talk about, even to peers. Which is why BFB (in conjunction with NAFCU) established the NAFCU-BFB Executive Compensation and Benefits Survey of Federal Credit Unions. Each year the independent survey firm of Clark and Chase reaches out to hundreds of credit unions to gather an invaluable database of executive compensation and benefits for not just the CEO, but also for a handful of top executives as well.

All of the information is submitted and analyzed on an anonymous basis, and obviously the more credit unions that participate, the more comprehensive the data will be.  Even better, the survey results are provided free of charge to anyone who participates. The first survey emails will be going out to prior participants shortly.

As a kick off and invitation to participate in the 2014 survey, we’re doing a free live webinar with NAFCU Services to review the findings of the 2013 Survey, on Thursday, January 16, 2-3EST. During this webinar, Jack Clark from Clark & Chase Research will present the highlights of the 2013 survey results and give guidance on how to apply them to your credit union. If you’d like to join us, you can sign up for the webinar at www.nafcu.org/BFBwebinars

If you haven’t participated before and would like your credit union’s executive compensation and benefits to be reflected in the 2014 survey, you can sign up to participate in the survey here www.nafcu.org/execsurvey