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Bonuses expected to be smaller in '03

Corporate America is singing the bonus blues: When 174 senior executives from top firms were asked whether their compensation would be lower this year, 71 percent said they doubted they would receive their maximum annual bonus in 2003.

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''While there are some signs of an improving economy in the second half of 2003, the first half was still tough going,'' said Tom Wamberg, chairman and chief executive of Clark Consulting, an executive compensation and benefits firm that polled the Fortune 1000 executives this month.

''We are seeing bonuses, even at senior levels, tied to sales,'' he said. ''If an upward trend continues in 2004, we should see a surge in earned bonuses.''

The company also found that 35 percent of the executives expected to receive 0 to 20 percent of their maximum bonus in the last quarter of 2003, 13 percent expected to receive 21 to 40 percent, 11 percent expected to receive 41 to 60 percent, and 12 percent expected to receive 61 to 80 percent.

According to the survey, only 29 percent expected to receive most or all of their maximum bonus the end of this year.

In a separate report, compensation consultants Watson Wyatt Worldwide said that even though companies reported improved profitability, the sluggish economy and difficult business environment caused many employers to change how they reward employees.

''Our research shows that many organizations reduced both salary increases and bonus pool funding, while asking employees to contribute more toward health care benefits,'' the company said. The company said some top performing employers continued to offer total rewards packages to their employees and executives in 2003.

Those companies also became more adept at figuring out exactly how much of a bonus their most talented people should receive and shied away from blanket rewards, the company found. Watson Wyatt said many employers also limited eligibility for long-term incentives that are given out over the course of several months or years.

When the company looked at merit increases, it found that corporate budgets for merit increases now stand at 3.2 percent, down from 3.6 percent in 2002.

Things should improve in 2004, however. Of the 358 US companies polled by Watson Wyatt, only 18 percent said they would ask employees to increase their contribution to health benefits, down from 56 percent in 2003. Additionally, 12 percent said they would reduce their budgets for salary increases, down from 45 percent in 2003.

Career sacrifices tied to marital woes

Women doctors and other female professionals who reduce their hours after having children may encounter some marital roadbumps, according to a study released last week by the Community, Families and Work Program at Brandeis University in Waltham.

''If you have a career and you cut down on your work hours, there could be a negative impact on your marriage,'' said program director Karen Gareis.

The university program interviewed more than 100 female physicians over the last four years who had slashed their hours to spend more time raising their children. The program also interviewed their spouses. In each case, the women had agreed to spend more time at home and had reduced their work hours to part-time. The men, however, continued to work as much as 60 hours per week.

Gareis coauthored the report with Rosalind Barnett, executive director of the Brandeis program. The authors found that the wives' career sacrifices can have some negative impacts on marriages. Paradoxically, they said, the happier men are with their full-time schedules, the unhappier career women with reduced schedules are with their marriages.

''She feels she is making a career sacrifice,'' said Gareis. ''About a third of the women we interviewed were concerned that they had become less advanced professionally than the people they had gone to school with. In some cases, after they changed their hours, they were required to change the content of their jobs. Some, for example, gave up research or some other kind of work that was very important to them.

''It is always assumed that when a working couple has children someone has to cut back and it is usually the mother, but no one questions if that's problematic,'' said Gareis.''

Asked whether other professional women might feel the same way, Gareis said: ''We really do think these findings apply to the regular population and to any dual career couple, especially in cases where there is an inequity because one spouse is making the sacrifice but the other is not.''

She said the study had too few men in the care-giving role to determine whether they, too, felt resentful about their career sacrifices. She also said female physicians in the study reported that their colleagues seemed to resent their reduced hours or felt they were not contributing enough on the job.

''To be committed to a medical career is to be willing to give up your life for it,'' Gareis said. ''Doctors work very, very long hours. But the women's colleagues felt that the women weren't working hard enough. We talked to managers and they told us that the part-time people were very efficient. They spent less time talking around the water cooler, they were more cooperative and more grateful to their employers for allowing them to have such a schedule.''

The authors said marital friction stemming from the woman sacrificing more of her career than her male spouse to care for a child or children is likely to crop up more as larger numbers of women move into management.

Magazine errs on Harvard program

Here's a blooper: When ''Working Mother'' magazine published its mega-issue on the top 100 US employers for working women recently, it gave Harvard University kudos for offering a special program to help workers cope with their children's difficult teen years. As it turns out, Harvard doesn't have a program for teens.

''We have never offered that type of program,'' said Merry Touborg, director of communications for Harvard University's human resources office. ''Nor are we contemplating having anything like that. We have backup care for elders, backup care for children and a lot of adoption support.''

Touborg said Harvard called ''Working Mother'' magazine and tried to correct the error, but it was too late. The magazine item could not be changed.

Touborg said a range of work-life benefits and practices, including the university's appointment of women to top positions, helped put it on the magazine's best employers' list.

''The magazine looked at the advancement of women as a key factor,'' she said. ''We have three new female deans. Also, 59 percent of our middle managers are women, and two of our vice presidents are women.''

Harvard, was the only university on this year's list. It is a major employer in Massachusetts, with 17,000 employees, according to Touborg.

DIANE E. LEWIS

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