Compensation Planning
What is compensation planning in BambooHR?
Purpose: To learn how to set up and complete compensation planning in BambooHR. Compensation planning is a structured approach to managing compensation cycles, allowing for budget allocation, hierarchical approvals, and automated calculations. The process includes setting up compensation cycles, defining approval flows, and using worksheets to make informed compensation decisions. The system ensures competitive and fair compensation practices, supporting talent retention.
Compensation planning
The compensation planning feature provides a systematic approach to managing compensation cycles by enabling budget allocation, hierarchical approvals, and automated calculations.
HR admins can define the scope and timeline of the compensation process, including start and end dates, included employees, and compensation components (salary, equity, bonuses), and communications are being planned.
The compensation planning feature is only available to Account Owners and Full Admins at this time (unless otherwise given access in the Compensation Planning process as a Recommender, Approver, or Planning Admin).
Compensation planning setup
Access your compensation planning under Settings > Compensation > Compensation Planning. Click Create New Comp Cycle to create a new cycle.
Fill in the information for Cycle Details, Cycle Name, Compensation Types, Cycle Dates, Cycle Window, Due Dates, and Currency. When finished, click Create Comp Cycle to create your new cycle. You will now see your new cycle in the Compensation Planning list.
Access to the Compensation Planning tool is seamless and role-specific. When included in an active compensation approval flow (as a recommender or approver), users automatically gain temporary, dynamic access. This behind-the-scenes permission provides the necessary access to perform duties for assigned employees, including viewing relevant compensation information within the worksheet and on the employee profile, such as job information, compensation, and performance scores.
This ensures they have a complete picture to make informed decisions, even if they do not typically have access to all this sensitive data. The Planning tab appears only when a user has active permissions for a cycle. Currently, these dynamic permissions are automatically removed, and the tab disappears once the cycle is completed.
When selecting your approval flows, you will first want to filter your compensation information using the Group By dropdown and settings icon. From here, you can filter by Department, Location, Division, or Job Title and then add a final approver, remove an approver, or reset all flows.
On each employee line item, you can add additional recommenders/approvers, remove a recommender, or swap a recommender for each approval workflow. Click the three-dot button to select the specific action from the dropdown menus.
For users designated as recommenders, the primary view for users designated as recommenders is the Recommendations tab. This tab is designed for managers or team leads to propose initial compensation adjustments for their direct reports or assigned employees.
- Recommendations Tab: Recommenders will see this tab once they click on Compensation > Planning > select the applicable cycle.
- My Employees View: The default view on this tab displays "My Employees," showing only the individuals for whom the recommender is responsible for making recommendations. The groups are separated by the approval chain.
- Worksheet Columns: Worksheets display data in columns to provide leaders with the information they need to make compensation decisions. Recommenders will use the provided worksheet to input their suggested compensation changes for each employee.
- Budget Visibility: The summary bar will display the budget allocated for their recommendations. This budget number is dynamic and reflects changes as recommendations are entered.
- Viewing the Approval Chain: Recommenders can see the full approval chain for their recommendations, understanding who their recommendations will be sent to next and where they are in the overall process.
- Sending Recommendations: Once recommendations are complete, the recommender will use the "Send to" button to submit their batch of recommendations to the next person in the approval chain.
- Audit Log: Recommenders can view the audit log for each employee's row to see the history of changes made within the compensation cycle.
- Communication Email (Post-Approval): After recommendations have been approved by the entire approval chain and finalized, the "Send Change Communication Email" button will become active. Recommenders can use this to notify their employees of the changes, typically before the cycle is officially closed.
For users designated as approvers, their primary interface will be the Approvals Tab. This tab is designed for managers or leaders to review, adjust, and approve compensation recommendations submitted by recommenders. If they are also recommenders, they will have both tabs available. Many features on this tab function similarly to the Recommenders Tab.
- Reviewing Recommendations: Approvers will see batches of recommendations sent to them by recommenders or other approvers below them in the chain. These batches are organized by who sent them and represent different approval chains.
- Recommendation Statuses: Approvers will see the status of the approval chain, along with whether the last person in the chain.
- Making Adjustments: Approvers have the ability to review and, if necessary, adjust the compensation recommendations before approving them.
- Budget Visibility: Like recommenders, approvers will see a budget summary. It's important to note that if a planner has multiple batches from different chains, the displayed budget represents the overall budget for their entire scope of employees, not separate budgets per batch.
- Sending Approvals: Once reviews are complete, approvers will use the "Send Approvals" button to forward the recommendations to the next person in the chain. If an approver is the last person in a specific approval chain, their "Send Approvals" button will be replaced with a "Finalize Approvals" button. Clicking this button marks that specific set of recommendations as fully approved.
- Audit Log: Approvers can view the audit log for each employee's row to track the history of changes and approvals.
- Communication Email (Post-Approval): Once recommendations are fully approved, the "Send Change Communication Email" button activates for anyone in that approval chain. Approvers can also use this button to send the formal change communication to employees, ensuring it happens before the cycle is officially closed.
Within custom access level settings, users can be granted the Compensation - Planning Admin permission. This permission gives them Full Admin capabilities within Compensation Planning, allowing them to create new compensation cycles, edit or delete draft cycles, publish cycles, and more.
For Full Admins and Planning Admins, the tool provides specific functionalities related to managing and completing the compensation cycle.
Admins will have the same permissions and access to the Recommendations and/or Approvals Tabs as other planners, but only if they are included in an active compensation approval workflow. In other words, if an Admin is part of an approval workflow, they will see their assigned recommendations or approvals, similar to a standard recommender or approver.
If an Admin is not included in any compensation approval workflow (meaning they are not a recommender or approver for any employees in the current cycle), the worksheet area on their live Compensation Cycle will display a blank state.
Admins also have additional permissions:
- View Settings and Exporting: Admins have the ability to view the overall settings and configuration of the compensation cycle, even though these settings are locked once the cycle is live. They also have the ability to export the current view as a CSV.
- Publishing the Cycle: Admins are typically responsible for, and have the permission to, click the "Review and Publish Comp Cycle" button, which finalizes all approved changes and closes the cycle.
- Visibility of Cycles in All Statuses: Admins can create new comp cycles, delete drafts, and see cycles in all statuses (live, completed, and draft cycles) on the main Planning tab.
Use the Budget tab to add your salary guidelines (you can also select No guidelines to remove the soft guidelines) and your Budget Breakdown to your Compensation Cycle. The information will automatically save when added. Click Reset all Budgets to reset all of the listed budgets.
This step automates your communication in the letters that employees will receive about their compensation changes. Edit the Paycheck Date, Email Subject, and Message. Use the Compensation Placeholders to autofill employee information.
Can we make it clearer that this is where they configure the email template that is sent when a planner clicks the "Send Change Communication Email" button on the worksheet? Also, there is one template used for all employees (which isn't customizable by group).
Use the Summary step to review all Compensation Cycle information. When ready, click Launch Compensation Cycle to launch your new cycle. If there are any errors with the cycle, you will need to fix them before continuing to launch your cycle. Click into each text box to directly fix the issue(s).
A confirmation modal will appear to double-confirm the changes. Please note, once you click Launch Comp Cycle you will not be able to make any edits to the cycle.
Once you launch your comp cycle, you'll see a green confirmation banner with the cycle details. Click Go to Comp Worksheet to review the worksheet.
Completing the Compensation Cycle
The Review and Publish Comp Cycle is the "button of all buttons" because of its significant impact.
The final step in the compensation planning process is to officially close the cycle and apply the approved changes to employee records. This action is typically performed by an HR or Compensation Planning Admin, but it's crucial for all users to understand its actions.
- Writes to the Database: All finalized compensation changes (e.g., new salaries, bonuses) are written to the system's database and applied to the respective employee profiles. If applicable, the system automatically converts any monetary amounts from the base planning currency when adding the data to the employee's table.
- Visibility on Employee Profiles: The compensation changes become visible on employee profiles immediately after this button is clicked.
- Removes Permissions: The dynamic access permissions granted to planners for this cycle are automatically removed. This means the Compensation tab > Planning will disappear from their navigation.
The system provides a clear warning before this button is clicked, emphasizing that the changes will be visible on employee profiles right away and that employees will not be notified until a change letter is sent.
Before completing the cycle we highly recommend ensuring all of the below steps are completed before publishing:
- Employee Communications: All "Send Change Communication Email" actions should be completed by the relevant managers/approvers before the cycle is finalized. Once the cycle is closed, managers will lose access to the tool and will not be able to send these emails. If this happens, an HR Admin would need to send them.
- No Undo Functionality: There is currently no "undo" button for completing a compensation cycle. Once the changes are written to the database, reversing them is a complex and manual process (e.g., exporting data, clearing tables, re-importing, and potentially re-running the cycle). This is similar to manually correcting compensation data outside of a cycle.
- Audit Trail: While the internal compensation cycle audit log provides a detailed history, only the final changes (and the Admin who clicked the "Publish" button) will be recorded in the main system Audit Trail. Confidentiality of internal cycle changes is maintained within the compensation tool's dedicated audit log.
Compensation planning worksheet
Once you have set up your compensation planning cycle, you will want to review the compensation planning worksheet.
This worksheet gives the information you need to make compensation decisions. It offers an intuitive interface displaying all employees with relevant data (e.g., pay, job title, performance) for making compensation recommendations, serving as the central hub for all compensation planning activities.
Comp planners can adjust pay, see immediate budget impacts, and track metrics like comp ratios and band penetration, with changes syncing back to BambooHR records, reducing manual work and the need to import and export CSV files.
Below are the components of the worksheet:
- Worksheet Grand Total: The sum of all sections of the worksheet.
- Total Cycle Budget: The total budget allocated for the compensation cycle.
- Proposed Additions: The total value of all recommended increases across all compensation types.
- Left in Budget: The remaining available budget after all current recommendations.
- Dynamic Circle Graph: Visualization of the different components of the worksheet.
- Employee Info Columns (orange): Includes employee information such as Name, Job Title, Employment Status, Hire Date, Level, Last Pay Change, Current Pay Rate, Paid Per, and Salary Band.
- Input Columns (green): Includes information that needs to be saved to the database, such as Salary Increase Recommendation (in $ or %), Bonus Increase Recommendation, and Equity Increase Recommendation.
- Calculated Columns (yellow): Includes automatically calculated information such as Comp Ratio, Range Penetration, New Pay Rate, Pay Increase + Pay Percentage Increase, Current Total Compensation, New Total Compensation, Total % Change, and Total $ Change.
- Edit and Export: Click this to edit or export your worksheet.
- Complete Worksheet: Clicking Complete Worksheet opens a modal to confirm the submission. Once clicked, anything in the Recommended Increase columns (for all pay types) will automatically publish to their respective tables on the employee profile with the effective date entered when creating the compensation cycle.
All changes made to the compensation page are automatically saved. Admins can leave the page anytime; their most recent changes will be saved.
The View All tab, available to all compensation planning admins for all cycles, shows all the approval chains and worksheets. This allows comp planning admins to always know the progress of a cycle and what has been done.
The View All tab allows comp planning admins to view information only, without making edits. However, comp planning admins can still click the "Review and Publish the Comp Cycle" and "Send the Change Communication Email" buttons as they normally would.
The system disables Budget, Additions, and Left in Budget in the summary bar because comp planning admins, who are viewing the whole cycle, do not have a budget and are not making changes.
If the comp planning admin navigates to their recommendations or approvals tab (if available), they will still have their normal budget access.
When comp planning admins access this view, a dismissible banner will appear. They can also export the worksheets to CSV and view the cycle settings.
Please note the following:
- If an admin has direct reports, they will see the Recommendations tab.
- If an admin is part of an approval chain as an approver, they will see the Approvals tab.
- Admins will always see the View All tab to assist with the comp cycle.
Compensation email notifications
In addition to the manually sent email configured in the Communications step, automatic email notifications will be triggered for compensation cycles. These automated alerts ensure timely updates for admins, recommenders, and approvers, guiding users through their required actions in the compensation cycle.
First Email to Admins
The first email notification to admins is sent when the compensation cycle is launched.
Introduction Email - Recommenders
The email notifications to the recommenders are sent three days before recommendations are due.
Introduction Email - Approvers
The email notifications to the approvers are sent three days before approvals are due.
Final Email to Admins
The final email notification is sent to admins when all the recommendations and approvals have been submitted.
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