Hypocrisy knows no depths at the (still yet to apologise) Labour Party.
It was Gordon (I have ended Boom and Bust) Brown and Alistair Darling who brought in Stephen Hester to be the CEO of RBS, in succession to the Labour-honoured but then disgraced, Sir Fred Goodwin.
It was these two who agreed and signed off on the compensation package for Hester.
Now we have cheap point scoring by Ed Miliband and his jolly band of overpaid media supporters saying it is a 'disgrace' and the government should intervene, etc.. I won't go into Labour's complete lack of success whenever it 'intervenes' as that would take toooo long.
However, it is interesting to see only politicos, and most (all??) of those never having held down a real job, criticising the payout. I guess their lack of understanding of contractual matters is to be expected - they seem to be pathologically unable to keep their election promises, after all.
My advice to Stephen Hester - tell the board that 'no, I want my full contractual entitlement, £1.6 million or thereabouts, I want it in cash, oh and given the unprofessional way that you and the major shareholder handle bank affairs and most particularly my confidential compensation issues, I consider that I have been constructively dismissed - see you at the tribunal, where I will seek full compensation!'
Then Vince and George can figure out how they will get any banker of stature to take on the poisoned chalice that is RBS CEO and while they ponder, watch the share price of RBS spiral downwards and with it the taxpayer's 'investment'.
As you would expect with politicians, hypocrisy is leaking from Labour and finding a home with Lib Dem Jeremy Browne. He talks of
And exactly what is teh question of honour?
Are we also going to see all Premier League footballers having their compensation packages attacked, as well? What about newsreaders, the Director General of the biased BBC? union leaders like Brendan Barber and Bob Crowe? GPs and Council Leaderss? Maybe fatous MPs and junior ministers?
AS for Boris - well he has an election coming up. I think he will come to regret his short term opportunistic sound bite. As an aside, I really can't understand what he is doing in Davos though. Same applies to Ed M.
It was Gordon (I have ended Boom and Bust) Brown and Alistair Darling who brought in Stephen Hester to be the CEO of RBS, in succession to the Labour-honoured but then disgraced, Sir Fred Goodwin.
It was these two who agreed and signed off on the compensation package for Hester.
Now we have cheap point scoring by Ed Miliband and his jolly band of overpaid media supporters saying it is a 'disgrace' and the government should intervene, etc.. I won't go into Labour's complete lack of success whenever it 'intervenes' as that would take toooo long.
However, it is interesting to see only politicos, and most (all??) of those never having held down a real job, criticising the payout. I guess their lack of understanding of contractual matters is to be expected - they seem to be pathologically unable to keep their election promises, after all.
My advice to Stephen Hester - tell the board that 'no, I want my full contractual entitlement, £1.6 million or thereabouts, I want it in cash, oh and given the unprofessional way that you and the major shareholder handle bank affairs and most particularly my confidential compensation issues, I consider that I have been constructively dismissed - see you at the tribunal, where I will seek full compensation!'
Then Vince and George can figure out how they will get any banker of stature to take on the poisoned chalice that is RBS CEO and while they ponder, watch the share price of RBS spiral downwards and with it the taxpayer's 'investment'.
As you would expect with politicians, hypocrisy is leaking from Labour and finding a home with Lib Dem Jeremy Browne. He talks of
"There's a question of honour. Even if there's a contractual opportunity for him to have a bonus it doesn't mean he has to accept it."
And exactly what is teh question of honour?
Mr Browne said Mr Hester was paid more in three days than a soldier serving in Afghanistan received in a year.
"He should reflect on that. He is effectively a public servant in a bank which is almost completely owned by us the taxpayers," he said.
"He needs to think like a public servant who has a duty to his country, not just his own wealth."
Are we also going to see all Premier League footballers having their compensation packages attacked, as well? What about newsreaders, the Director General of the biased BBC? union leaders like Brendan Barber and Bob Crowe? GPs and Council Leaderss? Maybe fatous MPs and junior ministers?
AS for Boris - well he has an election coming up. I think he will come to regret his short term opportunistic sound bite. As an aside, I really can't understand what he is doing in Davos though. Same applies to Ed M.
Steven Hester was interviewed on yesterday's BBC Radio 4 Today programme. As you know, Mr Hester took over RBS after the bank was part nationalised with the remit to reduce the banks risk profile, add value and ready it for a return to the market.
ReplyDeleteWithin what was a very good interview he made a number of interesting comments on the theme of high executive remuneration. One which grabbed my attention was the idea that we need to understand how executives (or shall we call them Value Creators) are motivated. The implication within his comments was that this group of people are motivated by financial return.
The obvious question is what makes this particular group of people motivated by financial reward when the rest of us, apparently are motivated by things such as the reward of the job, the chance to be autonomous or creative or some higher calling?
Professor Robert Frank of Cornell University, writes that high executive reward is all about relative reward and not absolute. That one CEO has a salary of £1m is not relevant if her peer group earns £1.5m. So there are elements of status and relative position here, which are deep motivators. The money is a proxy for “worth”.
Research also shows that financial incentives work when the task is repetitive or manual but not where the task is based on cognitive skills or creativity. No amount of money will turn someone lacking in creative talent into a creative genius. The debate about executive remuneration needs to evolve beyond the simplistic view of money as motivator. It needs also to consider the role that luck plays in a firms success; given that we interpret the outcomes of luck as the results of our unique labours and that poor results are the consequence of bad luck.