Compensation Elements
Total direct compensation (TDC)
Also called: TDC, total direct comp
Total cash compensation plus the annualized value of long-term incentives like equity grants.
Total direct compensation captures everything an employee earns directly for their work: base salary, short-term cash incentive, and the annualized value of long-term incentives (equity, deferred cash, etc.).
For executives and tech employees with meaningful equity, TDC is the right benchmarking metric — using TCC alone systematically underestimates competitive pay. For non-equity-eligible roles, TDC equals TCC.
TDC explicitly excludes benefits, perquisites, and one-time payments (sign-on bonuses, retention bonuses), which are typically benchmarked separately.
Example
A tech employee: $180,000 base + $40,000 bonus + $80,000 annualized RSU grant value = TDC of $300,000.