Salomon Makes Job, Pay Changes : Securities: The Wall Street firm restructures its top management and alters its bonuses policy.

NEW YORK — Salomon Bros. Inc., which has been struggling against defections by top-level staff members, on Monday announced a restructuring of top management and softened its recent radical change in the way the firm determines employee bonuses.

The investment bank unit of Salomon Inc. said it was naming a new executive group to oversee the firm’s client-driven businesses, which include investment banking, asset management and trading on behalf of clients.

The division has been hit hard by a persistent industry slump, contributing to the firm’s first-ever annual loss, $399 million for 1994. The new panel will help Salomon manage the division separately from its global proprietary trading business, in which Salomon trades for its own profits.

But analysts said the moves also seemed intended to help assuage top-performing Salomon investment bankers and other professionals who are upset over the potential for a sharp drop in bonuses because of a compensation change made last fall.

At that time, the investment bank unit of Salomon Inc. said it would begin tying employee bonuses to the firm’s overall financial performance, meaning that individuals’ pay could drop sharply during times of weak earnings.

Top-earning staff members have been leaving Salomon in increasing numbers recently, executive recruiters say. Last week, for example, investment banking chief Richard J. Barrett and Martin L. Leibowitz, Salomon’s director of research, joined the exodus.

Salomon stopped short of scrapping the new bonus plan on Monday, but it did say it is creating a fund to give bonuses to top-performing people in the firm’s client-driven businesses even if overall results slump.

On Wall Street, bonuses can boost the annual pay of top-performing traders, brokers and investment bankers by two-thirds or more.

“I don’t know if that announcement is strong enough to stem the tide. It’s not coming out and shelving the idea, which is what I think they need to do,” said Edward S. Orchant, president of A-L Associates, a Wall Street recruiting firm.

In revamping its management, Salomon said it is forming a four-member operating committee to direct the company’s client-related businesses. Salomon said it is scrapping its executive committee, replacing it with a 12-person management board composed of heads of major departments.

Salomon, which unveiled the changes Monday morning in a statement to employees by Chairman Deryck C. Maughan, also named successors for employees who have left recently.

Eduardo G. Mestre and Eric C. Fast are new co-heads of investment banking, succeeding Barrett. Leibowitz’s post is filled by fixed-income research head Thomas E. Klaffky, equity research head James D. Crandell and economic and market analysis head John P. Lipsky.

Perrin Long, a securities industry analyst at Brown Bros. Harriman & Co., said the naming of new management panels seemed designed to give a greater say to the staff in client-related businesses.

“We’re well aware there’s been internal dissension among the ranks at Salomon Bros.,” Long said. “I think this whole thing really comes down to trying to keep troops in line.”