Create and configure a compensation review (comp review) in Workleap Compensation. You define the review details and key dates, select eligible employees, assign reviewers and approvers, choose which pay changes are in scope, and set guidelines, budgets, bonuses, and equity grants. This article walks through each step of the setup wizard so you can prepare your review before launching it.
Note: Only Executives can create, configure, and launch comp reviews.
Start a comp review
In the left navigation, select Comp Reviews.
Select Create New Review.
You don't have to finish setup in one sitting, but your progress isn't saved automatically. If you leave the wizard with unsaved work, an Unsaved Changes prompt appears — select Save and Exit to keep your progress as a draft, or Discard Changes to lose it.
To come back to an unfinished comp review, find it in the list and select Continue Setup.
To discard an unfinished comp review, select Delete Draft. Deleting a draft is permanent.
What you can change later
Some steps lock once you create the comp review. Plan these carefully.
Setup step | Editable after you create the comp review? |
General Details | Yes |
Key Dates | Yes |
Eligible Employees | Yes |
Reviewers & Approvers | No |
Approval Chains | Yes |
Performance Ratings | No |
Pay Changes | No |
Budget Settings | No |
Guidelines | No |
Budget Distribution | Yes |
Bonus Payouts | No |
Equity Grants | No |
Default Columns | Yes |
1. General details
Set the basics for the comp review.
Comp Review Title (required): Choose a clear, descriptive title. Participants see the title when they're invited, so make sure it reflects the purpose of the review.
Currency (required): All pay changes that result from the comp review are converted into the currency you select. You can select a currency other than your account's default currency.
Sandbox Mode (optional): Turn on Sandbox Mode to set up and launch a comp review for testing or training. Reviewers and approvers aren't invited to participate, and only Executives can access a comp review in Sandbox Mode.
Important: You can't convert a comp review in Sandbox Mode to a live comp review. If you intend to eventually launch this comp review for real, leave Sandbox Mode off.
Note: On trial accounts, Sandbox Mode is always on and can't be turned off. Comp reviews on a trial account can only be launched in Sandbox Mode.
2. Key dates
Set the four dates that frame the comp review. Each date must come after the one before it.
Comp Review Start Date — when the comp review is initiated and participants are invited to start reviewing their teams. Must be a future date.
Reviewer Deadline — when reviewers must submit their initial recommendations for approval.
Final Approval Deadline — when all teams must be approved by their final approvers.
Pay Change Effective Date — the effective date of pay changes approved in this comp review. This date appears in comp review exports.
Note: Key dates are for reference and communication. You can change them at any point during the comp review.
3. Eligible employees
Select the employees who are eligible for a pay change or promotion in this comp review.
Use the filters to narrow the list. You can filter by Department, Employment Type, Job Function, Hire Date, Job Level, Job Location, Job Start, Job Title, Last Pay Change, Manager, and Pay Zone.
Select the checkbox next to an employee's name to add them.
To select every employee in the filtered list, select the checkbox in the header row. To exclude someone, clear their checkbox.
Note: Employees who are inactive or aren't mapped to a job are flagged and can't be included. Clear their checkboxes, or fix their data, before continuing.
You can add or remove eligible employees after the comp review is created. When you do, Workleap Compensation shows you the impact on your budget before you confirm.
4. Reviewers and approvers
Based on the eligible employees you selected, you'll see a list of potential reviewers and approvers.
Reviewers recommend pay changes or promotions for their team.
Approvers confirm the changes the reviewer recommended.
Select the checkbox next to each person you want to include. Use the filters (Department, Job Function, Job Level, Job Title, or name search) to narrow the list.
Every team in a comp review must have a reviewer and can have zero or more approvers.
Note: Approval chains are generated automatically from your organizational structure. If someone is left out of the comp review, the approval chain rolls up to the next eligible person. You can review and adjust the result on the next step.
Important: This step can't be changed after you create the comp review.
5. Approval chains
An approval chain is one reviewer plus zero or more approvers, per team. Review the generated chains and adjust them as needed.
The table shows:
Team (with the team's Direct Manager)
Team Size
Department
Reviewer
Approvers
Replace a reviewer
Select the reviewer's name, then select Replace reviewer.
Choose a new reviewer from the dropdown. You can only choose someone from higher up in the approval chain.
Select Replace reviewer.
Note: Every team in a comp review must have a reviewer.
Add or remove approvers
Select an approver's avatar in the Approvers column.
Choose whether to add or remove an approver.
When removing an approver, choose whether to remove them from this team's approval chain only, or from all approval chains.
Note: If you remove all approvers from a chain, the team's reviewer also acts as the approver.
Important: Only Executives, Collaborators, and Direct Managers with access to the entire team can be set as approvers.
Reset an approval chain
To undo your changes and return to the chain generated from your org structure, select Reset approval chain.
Note: You can keep editing approval chains after the comp review is created, including on a live comp review.
6. Performance ratings
Display or assign performance ratings during the comp review to give managers more context when they recommend pay adjustments and promotions.
Enable Performance Ratings: Shows each employee's rating in the comp review.
Performance Rating Recommendations: Lets participants assign or recommend ratings during the comp review.
The rating scale is inherited from your most recent performance rating import. If you haven't imported ratings or a scale yet, these options are disabled — you can import from the Performance Ratings step.
Note: If you enable performance ratings, your merit guideline matrix on the Guidelines step can include performance ratings as a variable.
Note: If your account has an active Workleap Performance integration, rating recommendations are managed in Workleap Performance while that integration is active.
7. Pay changes
Use the toggles to choose which pay change types participants can recommend in this comp review.
Base Pay
Hourly Pay — automatically unavailable if none of your eligible employees are paid hourly.
Variable Pay
Bonus Target
Equity Grants — unavailable if your account's equity band format is set to Equity Value.
Promotions — lets participants recommend an employee for a promotion or a lateral move.
Note: Base Pay is enabled by default for every comp review.
Pay change reasons
Select the pay change reasons participants can choose to justify a compensation adjustment, such as Merit increase, Cost of living adjustment, Market adjustment, Lateral move, Pay equity adjustment, and Promotion.
Merit increase is enabled by default and can't be removed.
Important: Pay change types and reasons can't be changed after you create the comp review.
8. Budget settings
Decide whether this comp review tracks a budget, and which pay changes count toward it.
Track budget for this cycle: Set a budget to track pay increase spending. Turn this off to run a cycle without a budget.
If budget tracking is off, pay changes are still reviewed and approved, but there's no budget to track them against, and no budget columns or targets appear for reviewers.
Important: Whether budget tracking is on or off can't be changed after you create the comp review.
If budget tracking is on, choose which components count toward the budget:
Base Pay (included by default)
Variable Pay
Bonus Target
Each option includes that pay component for all applicable and eligible employees.
Set up budget pools
Budget pools let you divide your budget by the pay change reasons you enabled on the previous step.
For each pool you want to create:
Enter a name for the pool and select one or more pay change reasons to include.
A pay change reason can only belong to one budget pool.
Select Add New to create another pool.
Note: Pay change reasons don't all have to be assigned to a pool. Any spend from a reason that isn't assigned to a pool is treated as spend outside your comp review budget.
9. Guidelines
Merit increase guidelines give managers a framework for how much of a base pay increase to recommend for their team. Guidelines only affect base pay increases.
Turn on Merit Increase Guidelines to configure them.
Guideline types
Single Value: A target percent increase (for example, 5%). You can set an exception threshold — the percent a pay change can deviate from the guideline without being flagged. Anything beyond the threshold is flagged as an exception for the rest of the approval chain.
Range of Values: A percent range (for example, 4% to 6%). Recommendations above or below the range are flagged as exceptions for the rest of the approval chain.
Guideline matrix variables
Choose which variable or variables your guidelines are based on:
Compa-ratio only
Market compa-ratio only
Range penetration only
Performance rating only
Performance rating + compa-ratio
Performance rating + market compa-ratio
Performance rating + range penetration
Multi-variable options let you tailor guidelines to both performance and pay band placement.
Note: Performance rating variables are only available if performance ratings have been imported and enabled for this comp review.
Guideline segmentation
Apply guidelines differently across employee segments — by division, department, or pay zone.
Note: When you separate a segment, Workleap Compensation generates a new guideline matrix for those employees. The default matrix covers everyone else. Use the tabs at the top of the matrix to switch between segments.
Fill out the guideline matrix
Enter the base pay increase you want to allow for each interval.
The number of employees in each interval is calculated in the bottom row of the matrix as you fill in the fields.
If you chose the range guideline type, projected spend is calculated using each range's midpoint.
Proration
Prorate guidelines based on hire date or last pay change, using this formula:
(Proration End Date − Proration Variable Date) ÷ 365 × 100%
Note: Only employees whose date falls less than 365 days before the proration end date receive prorated guidelines.
Fallback guidelines
Set fallback guidelines for employees who don't meet the conditions of your guideline matrix. The number of employees affected and their projected spend appear on the page and are included in the total projected spend for base pay.
10. Budget distribution
Budget Distribution shows the budget pools you configured on the Budget Settings step, and is where you set the actual budget across those pools, departments, and individual teams.
You can allocate as a percent or as a monetary amount.
Budget data auto-updates across the tabs: values entered at the most granular level (teams) roll up to the broadest level (budget pools), and the reverse.
You can adjust budget distribution after the comp review is created.
11. Bonus payouts
Set up bonuses for this comp review.
Bonus plan payouts define a recommended payout for employees who have a bonus target. Import payout values using the CSV template, and the bonus plan budget is calculated from your import. Choose whether payouts are non-editable, or whether participants recommend within a guideline range.
One-time bonuses are lump sums that fall outside a formal bonus plan. Select the eligible employees, then set the budget using a percent of base pay, a percent of base + variable pay, or a monetary amount. Optionally turn on guidelines to give participants a recommended range.
Important: Bonus payout settings, including the list of employees eligible for a one-time bonus, can't be changed after you create the comp review.
Important: One-time bonus budgets are only visible to Executives.
12. Equity grants
If equity grants are enabled for this comp review, choose which types of grants participants can recommend. Each type is turned on independently:
Performance Grant — new grants issued based on the employee's performance.
Promotion Grant — new grants issued if an employee is promoted.
Refresh Grant — new grants issued to employees who already have equity grants.
For each grant type you enable, select the eligible employees and set a guideline:
Guideline Type — a fixed value, a percent of the equity band high, low, or target, or the percent difference between the employee's current and promotion targets.
Value — a single value or a range.
Guideline Variable (optional) — base the guideline on performance rating.
Note: This step only appears if your account uses equity grants with a supported equity band format.
Important: Equity grant settings can't be changed after you create the comp review.
13. Default columns
Choose which columns participants see by default in the comp review. Participants can show or hide any column themselves, so this only sets the starting view.
Column notes (optional)
Add a note to a column to give participants context or instructions. When a participant hovers over the column header, the note appears as a tooltip.
14. Review and create
The final step summarizes everything you configured.
Hover over any section to reveal the Edit option and adjust your selections.
When you're ready, select Create Comp Review.
Note: Creating the comp review doesn't launch it, and doesn't notify anyone. Participants are only notified when you launch it.
Resolve participant issues before launching
Before you can launch, Workleap Compensation checks that every reviewer and approver can actually do their job. If something's missing, you'll see a Participants that need your attention list, which separates issues that block the launch from warnings you can proceed past. Common issues include:
The person doesn't have a Workleap Compensation role.
The person hasn't been added as a Workleap user yet.
The person doesn't have permission to see the employees or pay bands they've been assigned.
Use the inline Edit permission scope or Invite actions to fix each one, then re-check. Once no blocking issues remain, you can launch.
Note: Comp reviews in Sandbox Mode skip this check, since participants aren't invited.
Launch and manage the comp review
Once the comp review is created, it sits in Ready for Launch until you launch it.
Launch: All participants receive an email inviting them to join, and the comp review moves to In Progress. Comp reviews in Sandbox Mode don't send any emails.
Reopen: Moves a comp review back to In Progress. Existing decisions and approvals are kept, and no notifications are sent.
Complete: No further changes can be made by participants or Executives. This can be undone by reopening the Comp Review.
Archive / Unarchive: Archiving removes participants' access to the comp review. Executives can unarchive it to restore access.
Note: Launching, reopening, completing, and archiving a comp review are Executive-only actions, available from the comp review's Manage menu.
Related articles
Manage compensation letters
Participate in a compensation review as a reviewer
Import performance ratings