The NASPP Blog

March 11, 2010

2010 Domestic Stock Plan Design Survey

We’ve just launched the 2010 Domestic Stock Plan Design Survey, which is co-sponsored by Deloitte. Don’t miss your chance to participate in this exceptional survey–by far the industry’s most comprehensive and longest-running. I see lots of questions posted in the NASPP Discussion Forum about common design and administration questions and almost all of them are answered by this survey.

Top Five Reasons Why You Should Participate in the Survey

  • To get the survey results! We’ve implemented a new policy this year–the full survey results will only be released to survey participants. (Service providers that aren’t eligible to participate can contact Danyle Anderson, the NASPP Programs Director, to find out how to qualify for a complimentary copy of the results.)
  • It’s easier than last time! We’ve cut the survey back to half the size of the prior survey, which means you can complete it in a lot less time.
  • We have a snazzy new survey tool! Courtesy of the CEP Institute at Santa Clara University, we have a cool new tool to collect your responses.  This will make it easier for you to save your answers and return to complete the survey later and have others in your company assist you with the survey.
  • Discounts on the NASPP Conference and NASPP membership! Respondents to the survey qualify for a 10% discount on NASPP Conference registration and NASPP membership.
  • Win cool prizes! All respondents that complete the survey during each week throughout the survey period will be entered into a raffle to win a $50 Amazon.com gift certificate.

Don’t wait–increase your odds of winning the weekly raffle by completing the survey early–before the last minute rush!

Trends That I’m Most Excited to See New Data On
Here are some of the trends we reported in the last survey (the 2007 Domestic Stock Plan Design and Administration Survey) that I’m most interested in seeing new data on.

  • Performance Awards: The 2007 edition of the survey saw a surge in usage of performance awards–64% of respondents, up from 30% in the 2004 survey. My sense, however, is that this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of this trend. Will this edition of the survey reveal that usage of performance-based plans has begun to catch up with usage of service-based full value awards?
  • Appreciation Only vs. Full Value: Appreciation-only vehicles, like stock options and SARs, were still the predominant vehicle for stock compensation in the last survey, with 96% of respondents offering them. But, usage of full value awards, i.e., RS/RSUs, increased significantly–87% of respondents, up from 52% in the 2004 survey. Will usage of RS/RSUs catch up to stock options/SARs or has this trend leveled off?
  • Flexible Share Reserves: Given the predominance of omnibus plans (89% of respondents in the 2007 survey) and challenges with the RiskMetrics SVT analysis for these plans, I was surprised that only 15% of respondents had a flexible share reserve. Will this feature be more common now?
  • Clawback Provisions: We’ve revised this edition of the survey to provide better information on the use of clawback provisions. Given current regulator and investor bias for these provisions, it will be interesting to see where practices come out on this.
  • Net Exercise: When the last survey was conducted, we were just at the beginning of this trend. We hope to see a significant upswing in the usage of net exercises in this survey.
  • Acceleration of Vesting Upon Retirement: Given all the consternation about the tax and accounting ramifications of accelerating vesting on retirement, I was surprised to find that, in the 2007 survey, only 22% of respondents provided this treatment for RS/RSUs for normal retirement and only 10% for early retirement. I expected the numbers to be much higher considering all the questions I answer about it. Have practices changed in this area?

Let’s make this interesting–10 points for each of the above trends that you can accurately predict!

18th Annual NASPP Conference Announced
This year’s NASPP Conference will be September 20-23 in Chicago.  Last year’s Conference sold out and we expect even more attendees this year.  Don’t wait to register–early bird discounts are only available until April 15.

NASPP “To Do” List
We have so much going on here at the NASPP that it can be hard to keep track of it all, so I keep an ongoing “to do” list for you here in my blog. 

-Barbara