Over the course of the past few weeks, executive pay has been thrown into the spotlight. One in particular concerns Denise Coates CBE, the boss of gambling giant Bet365 Group, who was recently awarded one of the biggest pay packets in corporate history.
It is believed that she took home a salary of £421million in the year ending March 29, 2021, while also earning £48million in dividends, taking her total pay to £469million.
Other execs earning eye-watering sums include the likes of Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol who took home a total of $14million (£10.8million) in 2020 and Paycom’s President Chad Richison, who earnt £151million ($211.13million) in 2020.
And revolts are starting to happen when it comes to CEO pay. For example, almost 40% of shareholders in estate agents Foxtons recently voted against its CEO Nicholas Budden from receiving a bonus of just under £1million. This is due to the fact that the firm received around £7million in Government support amid the pandemic, raising questions over why the CEO should earn such a handsome sum following a turbulent year.
But with executive-level pay looking likely to stay within the six-figure category, it begs the question whether CEOs are needed at all?
Could CEOs be automated?
Back in 2014, Oxford University published a report on what the most likely jobs to be automated were. On the list, jobs believed to be lower skilled were among the top most at threat, including roles such as telemarketing.
While CEOs were among the least under threat – this role came in at 631st place on the list of 700 roles – it did make an appearance, which indicates that this job could indeed be automated.
With businesses looking to commit to an increase in automation roles – in fact according to Mckinsey 31% of businesses already have fully automated at least one function – why couldn’t the role of the CEO be automated too?
Additional data from McKinsey found that CEOs spend almost 20% of their time on work that could be automated, such as analysing operational data and reviewing status reports, therefore implementing a fully automated CEO would help a business to save time and money.
The risks
Automating any jobs can be a huge business risk. Amazon is a prime example of this after the tech giant decided to roll out an AI recruitment tool, as it soon discovered that it discriminated against women.
However, in a New Statesman article, it suggested that this was an attempt to automate the type of work that happens without being scrutinised by lots of other people in an organisation. In comparison, top-level strategic decisions are different, as these are usually debated before they are rolled out.
But the article pointed out that these may not be debated as employees may feel they cannot speak up or challenge an idea out of fear of upsetting the CEO, indicating “another reason to automate them,” the article said.
While this may be the case, it raises concerns over the expense of management, such as executive pay packets. Meanwhile, technology becomes cheaper and far easier to implement. Therefore, if automation can get the job done and do it well, why shouldn’t CEOs be automated in the future?
Grapevine Leaders,
Jade Burke
April 2021