Glam Media's Good Fourth Quarter Good for Some

Unlike most online advertisers, who are starting to feel the burden of the economy on their bottom lines, Glam announced to employees today that the company is surprisingly buoyant.

VentureBeat has a copy of in-house memo released at the company meeting today. While the company was expecting "very bad news" in the fourth quarter, it turned out to be "the strongest quarter we have had -- we will end the year in a triple digit ad revenue growth rate year over year."

However, the company is not immune to the economic forces at large. To avoid mass layoffs, Glam is shifting all employees to variable pay. That means that salaries will be tied to the performance of the company -- to differing degrees.

The shift will make Glam's employees more dependent on Glam bringing in revenue than ever before.The management team, which already took a temporary 25 percent pay cut this year, will take a 25 to 60 percent compensation cut in 2009. Glam's top sales representatives will have about 25 percent of their compensation "fixed," down from 75 percent. The lower an employee's salary, the less of their income will be variable. 

While most sales representatives are accustomed to variable pay, shifting all employees to this system is a bit more difficult -- especially when their work is not directly linked to the company's revenue. It ought to make all employees more concerned about the bottom line. The question is whether they sacrifice long term success for short term compensation.

By Meghan Keane for Wired.com