The Comp Cycle module in TeamOhana enables managers to review their direct reports' compensation and make a recommendation for a merit increase based on their performance rating, date of last raise, and other factors.
Budgeting for merit
Before the comp cycle admins set up eligibility criteria for merit reviews, they should first confirm that the merit portion of the budget envelope is an accurate reflection of the budget that each department has for the merit cycle.
Under Settings > Budget Envelopes, users with the proper permissions are able to make adjustments on a per-department basis. This ensures each reviewer knows exactly how much they have to allocate to merit increases for their teams.
Creating the Comp Cycle
To set up a new Comp Cycle in TeamOhana, navigate to the Comp Cycle icon on your main menu bar, then click "Create." You will be asked to give your comp cycle a name and a description, then you'll have the option to provide admin access to the comp cycle to additional users. The user creating the comp cycle is, by default, the first admin.
Setting up the comp cycle: Comp cycle details
On the first page of the comp cycle setup, you will have the opportunity to review the name, description, and admins you set upon creating the comp cycle, as well as designate the final approver and input the important milestones.
The final comp cycle approver is the person who is going to sign off on all recommended merit adjustments after the rest of the approval chains have given their blessing. You can have up to two final approvers, who will provide their input sequentially (eg the person in Position 1 will approve first, followed by the person in Position 2).
The Review due date is the date by which all reviewers need to submit their merit adjustment recommendations for approval. They will receive reminders from TeamOhana if they have not submitted their recommendations up until one day before the due date.
The Final approval due date is the date by which the final comp cycle approver(s) must approve all pending reviews.
The Comp cycle effective date is the date on which all merit adjustments will go live. This date will be included in the final comp cycle report file once all approvals are complete.
Setting up the comp cycle: Eligible employees
The second page of the comp cycle setup is where admins will designate which employees are eligible for a merit review and which are ineligible.
Eligibility criteria includes:
Division/Department: if you are running a merit cycle for a particular department or set of departments, you can use this field to ensure the right divisions and/or departments and are included or excluded
Employee type: use this field to exclude contractors, interns, full time or part time employees as necessary
Job category and level: if your comp cycle is only targeting employees of a certain level of seniority, this field will help remove all other job levels
Employee start date: this field will ensure only employees of a certain tenure are eligible for merit increases
(Advanced) Last raise date: to eliminate employees who have recently received a raise (or include employees who haven't received a raise in 6+ months)
(Advanced) Performance: ensure only employees who have achieved a certain performance rating or above will be eligible
(Advanced) Compa ratio: ensure only employees within a specific compa-ratio range will be eligible
You also have the option to include or exclude certain employees to account for edge cases. For example, if your start date cutoff is 9/1/23 but you have an employee who started on 9/2/23 that you'd like to include, you can select their name in the "Include specific employees" field.
Once you've completed the eligibility criteria, click "Update" and the table below will update to provide a list of eligible and ineligible employees. While you're reviewing the list, if you'd like to move an employee over from eligible to ineligible (or vice versa) you can check the box next to their name and take action directly from the table.
Setting up the comp cycle: Reviewers and approvers
Once the comp cycle is launched, there are two types of users who will be invited to participate: reviewers and approvers.
Reviewers are responsible for evaluating compensation for their assigned employee set and sending the proposals up the approval structure. By default, the direct manager is automatically assigned as the reviewer
Approvers are responsible for approving, editing, or denying changes submitted by the reviewer. By default, the reporting line managers are assigned as default approvers
Users can be just a reviewer, just an approver, or play both roles.
In the Assignment rules of reviewers and approvers section of setup, you can tailor the process by skipping certain reviewers and approvers.
Reviewer setup
Include reviewers of specific levels allows you to include or exclude reviewers based on their job level. For example, if you did not want anyone at the M3 level to be providing reviews, you can include only M4 and above
Default reviewer allows you to designate the person who will review employees who do not have a reviewer assigned to them. This might occur if that reviewer was marked ineligible by their job level.
Skip specific reviewers is where you can remove specific employees from the Reviewer position. You might do this if the reviewer in question has just started working at the company, or is on leave, or is otherwise unable to provide a review for their employees
Approver setup
Max number of approvers is where you determine how many steps up the reporting line the review will go for approval. You can set the number of approvers up to 4
Default approver allows you to designate the person who will approve recommendations that do not have an approver assigned to them.
Skip specific approver is where you can remove specific employees from the approval chain. You might do this if the approver in question has just started working at the company, or is on leave, or is otherwise unable to approve reviews within their approval chain.
Once you set all of your reviewer and approval criteria, click the orange "Update" button to refresh the table below.
When the table updates, you will be able to see each reviewer, the number of employees they'll be reviewing, and their approval chain.
You can also toggle over to the Approvers tab to view each approver and the number of employees for whom they will be approving merit increases.
If you need to make any changes to this table, you can do so by clicking back into the Assignment rules and updating Reviewers and Approvers as necessary.
Setting up the comp cycle: Budget allocation
Here's where the merit budget comes in. When you get to the Budget allocation page, you will be asked to select the budget envelope that will be used to guide reviewers as they review and make recommendations for their employees.
Once you select the envelope, the merit breakdown by department will appear in a table view. If there are changes that need to be made, they will have to happen in the budget envelope itself - no updates can be made to this table.
Setting up the comp cycle: Permissions
In this step, admins can determine which permissions reviewers do and don't have within the Comp cycle. Every permission is enabled by default, but if there are certain tweaks the admins would like to make (e.g. a reviewer cannot mark an employee as eligible or ineligible) they can make those changes here.
Setting up the comp cycle: Guidelines
Admins also have the ability to establish compensation guidelines to recommend a suggested salary increase for reviewers, offering a reference point during the merit cycle process. Guidelines can be set based on performance, location, department, promotion, flat raise, and pro rata.
To create a guideline, select the attribute on which the guidelines will be based, then input the % raise guidelines as below. Once the guidelines are set, click "Generate recommendation" to see how these guidelines will impact both the merit cycle budget, as well as each eligible employee.
You can add multiple guidelines, which is handy if you'd like to pro-rate merit based on employees' start dates.
Setting up the comp cycle: Verify and launch
Before you set your comp cycle live, you will be able to review the details and criteria you set up on all of the previous pages. If changes need to be made, you can navigate back to any of the previous setup pages to make your adjustments.
Launching your comp cycle is an irreversible action - so we recommend a "Test run" before you go live. The Test run enables the admins to view the comp cycle from the individual reviewers' and approvers' perspectives, then go back and make any changes to the comp cycle criteria as necessary before launch.
Test run
In the Test run, the admins will be able to toggle back and forth between Admin mode and Employee mode to see how the comp cycle will be experienced from both perspectives once it's live.
In Admin mode, the dashboard shows the timeline with milestones across the top of the page, as well as the status of each review (pending, in approval, approved.) In the table below, you'll see each reviewer, their review status, and their review's approval chain.
You can click each reviewer's name to see what the comp cycle will look like for them once it's live:
Employee mode shows the admin how the comp cycle will be experienced as an employee when it's live, with "My reviews" (if the admin is also a reviewer), "My approvals" (if the admin is an approver) and "My org" tabs.
If at any point the comp cycle needs to be reconfigured, the admin can click the cog icon next to the orange "Launch" button in the top right corner of the page to adjust the comp cycle settings.
Alternatively, if the admin deems that the comp cycle is ready to be launched during the test run, they can click the orange "Launch" button. It will ask the admin to confirm, and from there they can set the cycle live.
Managing the comp cycle
In the time between when the comp cycle is set live and the deadline set for final approvals, admins can view the progress of the cycle and communicate with both reviewers and approvers as needed.
To read more about the comp cycle experience for reviewers, check out the help center article here. The approver experience is covered here.
Once all reviews have been approved by the final approver, the comp cycle admin will mark the comp cycle as "complete."
Completing the comp cycle
Upon completion of the comp cycle, it will no longer be editable and all approved merit adjustments will be collected in a downloadable report. Admins can then upload the new salary data into the HRIS before the effective date. The status of the comp cycle will update from "In progress" to "Complete."
