Even so, companies seem to be slowly moving away from stock options, and making greater use of tools like restricted stock or restricted stock units, in which executives can't sell their holdings for some period of time, Warfield says. A recent report by Ayco Compensation & Benefits Digest found that 82% of its clients were using one of these two tools, up from 72% a decade ago. More firms also are tying executive compensation to operating performance metrics, such as earnings growth, Warfield says.