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Managing Market Cycles in the Energy Sector with Compensation
"Attracting and retaining the right talent for a particular company is just as much of a challenge in a down market."
–Ed McGaughey, Managing Director, Houston
Despite a highly cyclical and global market, the oil and gas industry manages over time to sustain long-term growth and significant value creation. New technologies and techniques and a strong and consistent focus on research and development combined with calculated risk taking continue to create new opportunities for companies across the oil and gas value chain.
Our Approach to Energy Sector Compensation
In-depth experience you can rely on
Pearl Meyer’s team of experienced, senior consultants, have worked with energy sector clients for more than 30 years. We partner with clients to create competitive, nimble compensation programs that work in both up and down markets. Our goal is to help organizations attract new talent and retain and reward existing talent, while at the same time motivating behaviors that help achieve their long-term goals.
Balancing near-term challenges with long-term goals
Our approach to compensation is rooted in helping our clients balance the frequent near-term challenges that come with market volatility with their need to remain focused on their long-term business strategy. We are committed to understanding what makes each organization unique, assessing where you are in your business life cycle, how your operational model and financial structures impact value creation and using that knowledge to create tailored and effective compensation solutions.
Our Clients
Pearl Meyer creates reward strategies from the C-Suite to the broad-based employee population for companies across the oil and gas value chain. Our clients range from small, privately held organizations to Fortune 100 firms and global energy players from Italy to Malaysia across all segments of the oil and gas industry: upstream, midstream, and downstream.
Compensation Services and Capabilities
Strategic Alignment
- Development of compensation philosophies that support complex, capital-intensive, and long-range objectives
- Holistic short- and long-term incentive design
- Integration of incentive plans across business units
- Expatriate programs for global leadership placement
Sophisticated Analytics
- Assessment of historic, current, and planned goals
- Performance metric selection and calibration
- Modeling of potential plan outcomes against historical performance and peers
- Balancing potential plan payouts against financial and earnings expectations
- Analysis of share plan balances, share price erosion, and grant practices
- Peer group definition and competitive assessment
- Compensation surveys
Compliance Confidence
- Assessment and management of compensation-related risks
- Understanding institutional shareholder and proxy advisor perspectives
- Shareholder communications
- CD&A and disclosure communication
- Governance best practices
Tailored Solutions
Our focus on strategic alignment, developing the industry’s most comprehensive and sophisticated analytics while ensuring regulatory compliance, and the effective communication of compensation programs results in a tailored solution designed to provide your organization with a competitive advantage in a fluid and dynamic marketplace.
Ask the Expert
Ask the Expert
David Bixby
David is based in Pearl Meyer’s Houston location. He says, “My clients increasingly face pressure to conform to a generally accepted list of generic ‘best practices.’ This rarely makes sense for every company and every situation, particularly in the energy sector. My goal is to help boards and senior management remain focused on alignment with their own unique long-term business and talent strategies.”
Related Knowledge Share Items
Energy Industry Compensation Surveys
Pearl Meyer conducts on-going and topical surveys on compensation-related matters specific to the market:
Offshore Drilling Industry Surveys
- Drilling Management Survey
- Rig Crew Benchmark Survey (Global; semi-annually)
- Expatriate Practices Survey
- Trending Topics Surveys
U.S. Land Drilling Survey
Oilfield Services Industry Surveys
- Energy Services Survey Suite
- Module 1: Executive, Line and Staff Management
- Module 2: Marketing, Business Development and Sales
- Module 3: Engineers and Scientists (primarily located in facilities, not in the Field)
- Module 4: U.S. Manufacturing
- Module 5: Field (Includes Field Engineers, Operations Supervision, Field Specialists, Operations Support and Field Technical Support)
- Trending Topics Surveys
Contact Chris Touhey at chris.touhey@pearlmeyer.com or Ed McGaughey at ed.mcgaughey@pearlmeyer.com for additional information on Pearl Meyer’s complete energy industry survey portfolio.