Compensation Bands Manager: Pilot

Note: The Compensation Bands feature is currently in Pilot. This means that it is only available to limited customers. If you would like access - please reach out to your CSM.

What are compensation bands?

Compensation bands are the foundational data resource used to make compensation decisions within a company - from how much to offer a new employee hired into a specific job and location, to how to adjust employee compensation during a merit cycle.

Compensation bands are composed of fields that identify a unique job (and optionally a location grouping) within a company, and the corresponding compensation amounts for that job:

• Unique identifiers for a job are a combination of title (Software Engineer), job family (Engineering), and a level (i.e. P3).
• If a company is using geo-based pay practices, bands may include a geo-modifier
• Compensation amounts typically include salary amounts (a min, a mid and a max value) and often equity amounts as well.

Below you can see an example set of compensation bands

How to access Compensation Bands

Your CSM will help turn on this feature in your workspace. There is only one available permission today: the ability to view and edit all band sets. This permission will allow the user to view all bands, and download and upload the band set.

Once this is completed - click the Bands icon in your left nav bar to access your band sets.

Bands Manager and Band Sets

The Bands Manager enables customers to view and edit the “bands sets” that are used within the Plan product during a merit cycle and the Team View product.

There are 2 types of band sets:

1. The “Live” Band Set - This is used in Team View and Total Rewards
2. Merit Cycle Band Sets - Each of these is assigned to a specific merit cycle

A Pave customer can upload multiple sets of band sets through different band files. Every merit cycle within the Plan product has its own band set.

Maintaining multiple band sets in Pave allows a company to run a merit cycle with an updated set of bands, while continuing to use and communicate an existing band set within their company until the merit cycle is complete.

You can create draft band sets before assigning them to be your live set by clicking the Create Draft button.

Rename your band set by hovering over the title and clicking the Pencil icon. Then, to upload band values to a band set, simply click the Upload CSV and follow the instructions below.

Steps for uploading bands and updating the structure of your bands

If you want to upload bands to a new band set, or add new bands, make the changes in a CSV before uploading them to Pave (note you can download existing bands by clicking the 3 dots menu and clicking Download CSV).

1. Navigate to the band set that you want to edit.
2. If adding new bands, download the CSV as shown above.
3. Perform your updates in the CSV that you’ve downloaded without changing any column names.
4. The updates we support at this time are:
   1. updating numerical values
   2. updating currency values
   3. adding or removing bands
5. Save your updated CSV in preparation to upload it
6. Navigate to the band set you want to update and add your new CSV via the “Upload CSV” button. This will replace the entire bands set you previously had in Pave.
7. If this is successful, you’re done! If not, it’s because you’ve run into some errors that you need to resolve.
8. Resolve errors
   1. In the error pop-up, you’ll see the invalid bands listed with a corresponding error message
   2. Resolve errors for each invalid band in the CSV
9. Once you’ve updated each of the invalid bands, save your CSV and re-upload it to Pave
10. With errors resolved, you should see a success message - your bands in Pave are now updated.

Steps for updating band values

If you’re just updating band values for a handful of bands, you can use our in-app editing capabilities.

Click the Edit button above the table to start editing band values.

Upon entering edit mode, you can edit band values directly for any band. Simply clear a field to remove a value, or add to an empty field to add a value.

The app will highlight any errors in red. Hover over the error icon to understand the error and then resolve it before continuing.

After clicking “Review changes”, you will see a page that shows all your changes. If you need to, you can revert any changes directly. Then, to confirm your changes, click Save Changes.

Those changes will then immediately be reflected in either the associated merit cycle or in Total Rewards and Team View.

Troubleshooting Upload errors

Any errors will block upload of bands. There are two types of errors customers can encounter:

• Invalid Band Errors
• Duplicate Band Errors

Invalid Band Errors

Here are each of the error messages and what they mean

• Invalid max value for {pay type} , Invalid min value for {pay type}
  • What does this mean? → If a min value exists for a pay type then there must also be a max (and vice versa)
  • Example →
    • Band = basePayMin: 100000, basePayTarget: 125000
    • This band has a min value but not a max! To resolve, just add a max → basePayMax: 150000
• Min must be less than or equal to target for {pay type}
  • What does this mean? → The min value on the band cannot be greater than the target. You will see this error if it is.
  • Example →
    • Band = basePayMin: 100000, basePayTarget: 90000, basePayMax: 150000
    • The min value of this band is greater than the target! To resolve, update either the min or the target → basePayTarget: 125000
• Min must be less than max for {pay type}
  • This is the same concept as the error above
• Target must be less than or equal to max for {pay type}
  • This is the same concept as the error above
• Target variable pay percent must be a number
  • What does this mean → The targetVariablePayPercent column must be a number. You will see this error if it’s not!
  • Example →
    • Band = targetVariablePayPercent: 20%
    • This is a string, not a number (you can tell because there is the % symbol in it!). To resolve, update to → targetVariablePayPercent: .2
• Target variable pay percent must be between 0 and 1
  • What does this mean → The targetVariablePayPercent column must be between 0 and 1 (the percent in decimal form). You will see this error if it’s not!
  • Example →
    • Band = targetVariablePayPercent: 20
    • This is a string, not a number (you can tell because there is the % symbol in it!). To resolve, update to → targetVariablePayPercent: .2
• Missing job type matcher
  • What does this mean? → Occurs when the band does not have the relevant job type fields to match employees to. Consult the supported job matchers above!
  • Example →
    • Band = level: P2
    • If this is the only job matcher column in the CSV, then we cannot match employees to a unique job. If using level there must also be either a family column or title column. To resolve, update to → family: Software Engineering, level: P2

Duplicate Band Errors

Duplicate bands are multiple bands that describe the same unique job (title, level, location).

• Each band that is a duplicate will be displayed. Once you have removed the duplicate band, the error will be resolved.
  • Example 1 of duplicate bands:
    • Band 1: title: software Engineerlevel: P2location: Atlanta
    • Band 2: title: software Engineerlevel: P2location: Atlanta
  • Example 2 of duplicate bands:
    • Band 1: job_id: SWE12T1 Band 2: job_id: SWE12T1

Changing your Band structure

If you intend to change the structure of your Bands within Pave (changing the job or location identifiers), please contact your CSM or Implementation Manager for extra assistance. The data in your Band identifier fields must match exactly with data in your HRIS so that comp bands can be properly associated to the correct employees.

Adding Compensation Bands

You may add new bands in a band set by including them in the CSV upload. However, note that in order for them to be correctly associated with your employees in Pave, the data in the band identifier fields must exactly match the data on employees in your HRIS.