Merit increases or award incentives are calculated as guideline amounts by a process event. A guideline amount is the calculated increase or award after hire percents and performance factors (or leverages) have been applied to the budgeted or target award.

If recommendations are activated on the compensation plan or during the process event, a manager or other authorized person can recommend a discretional amount to override the calculated guideline amount.

Note Note

You can also manually enter a merit increase on the employee's fixed compensation plan by clicking the button in the form, and you can enter a variable award in the form.


Working with process events

Process events are compensation work streams that you use to calculate compensation information for a specific period for all employees that are enrolled in one or more fixed or variable compensation plans. Depending on the type of plan, a process event requires different information

Tip Tip

To enter process event information, click the button in the form.


You can run a process event repeatedly, for example, to test or update calculated results. When guideline calculations are correct, and when manager recommendations have been submitted and approved (if permitted), the next step is to load the transactions to the employee compensation records.

A process event can be as simple as an anniversary-based merit increase for one employee, or as complex as an enterprise-wide, annual, combined compensation process that includes merit increases, equity adjustments, annual bonus payments, and long-term incentive awards.

Note Note

We recommend that you use only a fixed or variable compensation plan once in a process event setup or work stream. If a plan is used in several process event setups or work streams, it might cause duplicate calculations.

You should run events in batch mode.


Set up a guideline award or fixed compensation increase in a process event

  1. Click > > > .

  2. Enter settings for the process event, and then click the button.

  3. In the field in the upper part of the form, select or , depending on the type or guideline you are creating.

  4. Select the check box to include performance ratings in the calculation.

  5. In the field in the lower part of the form, select a fixed compensation action that is allowed for the process, for example , or the variable compensation action.

  6. Select the check box to activate recommendations.

    Note Note

    You can also activate recommendations on the employees' fixed or variable plans.


  7. Click the tab on the lower part of the form to enter additional parameters and information.

    For plans, you can enter the number of steps that the pay is increased. You can also indicate whether the result of the previous fixed action is to be used in the calculation, or whether the original basis should be used, and you can indicate the amount of the general increase.

  8. Click in the form to run the compensation process.

Activate recommendations on fixed or variable plans

  1. Click > > > or .

  2. Click the tab, and select the check box.

Use recommendations to adjust fixed increases or awards

  1. Click > > > .

  2. Select an event, and click .

  3. Select the employee to recommend a fixed increase or an award amount for, and click .

  4. Enter your recommendation as follows:

    • Enter fixed recommendations on the or tab.

    • Enter variable composite plan recommendations on the tab or in the fields under on the tab.

    • Enter variable point-in-time plan recommendations on the tab.