HR playbook · AI Employee: Harry

Compensation Requests

Comp change effective in next payroll cycle

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The problem

Every compensation request — off-cycle raise, promotion, retention offer, market adjustment — is a fire drill. Manager writes a paragraph in Slack, HR asks for justification, comp team pulls market data by hand, finance asks for budget impact, someone builds a slide deck for the leadership sync, and the request stalls for six weeks while the employee wonders if they should quit. By the time it's approved, the goodwill is gone and half the reasons no longer apply.

At a glance
Trigger
Form
Approvals
Manager + skip-level + HRBP approval
What it does
Writes to your systems
Systems
Workday · Compensation planning tool
How it feels in production

An hour-by-hour walkthrough.

Manager Sarah opens the comp-request flow: "Off-cycle 12% raise for Priya, current $145K, requesting $162K. Reason: took on team lead responsibilities six months early, offer letter from Stripe on the table." Remy assembles the packet within 10 minutes: - Employee: Priya, L4 engineer, 2.5 years tenure, last review 'Exceeds Expectations,' promoted 8 months ago - Current comp: $145K base, 0.05% equity, $18K target bonus - Requested comp: $162K base (12% increase), keep equity/bonus - Market context: L4 engineer P75 in this metro = $158-172K per Radford/Levels.fyi (last refresh 30 days ago), current comp at P50 - Internal equity: peers on team at L4 range $148-166K; median $156K - Budget impact: $17K annualised, plus $2.3K bonus increase — within her manager's discretionary budget of $40K for the fiscal - Retention risk: verified Stripe offer via manager attestation; Priya has been a top contributor per last review - Approval chain: manager-of-manager (auto-approve up to 10%), VP People (over 10%), CFO (over 20% or above budget) The packet routes to manager-of-manager, then VP People (since request is 12%). Each approver sees the full packet with one-click approve. Decision returns in 3 business days instead of 6 weeks. On approval, Remy updates Workday, notifies payroll for the next cycle, and drafts the message Sarah delivers to Priya.
How it works

Step by step.

  1. 01

    Intake request + assemble employee context

    Manager submits: employee, requested change, reason. Remy pulls current comp, tenure, level, last review, promotion history, team-role context. Cited from HRIS + performance system.

    Workday · Lattice · 15Five · HRIS
  2. 02

    Enrich with market + internal equity data

    Market benchmarks from Radford / Payscale / Levels.fyi per role + level + geo (30-day-fresh data). Internal equity: peers on team, in role, at level. Both cited with source + date.

    Radford · Payscale · Levels.fyi · Internal comp bands
  3. 03

    Compute budget impact + retention signal

    Annualised comp delta including base + bonus + equity accelerator effects. Manager's discretionary budget remaining. External retention signals (verified competing offer, tenure milestone, promotion overdue).

    Finance system · Budget tracker · Comp planning
  4. 04

    Route through approval chain per policy

    Approval matrix per comp-change magnitude and role. Manager-of-manager, VP People, CFO. Each approver sees the full packet; approval SLA and escalation ladder enforced.

    Slack · Teams · Approval flow
  5. 05

    Execute + notify + audit

    On approval: update HRIS effective-dated, notify payroll for next cycle, draft the manager-to-employee delivery message. Audit trail with approvers + timestamps + reasoning for comp-history record.

    Workday · Payroll · Audit log · Slack
Systems and wiring

What you connect to make this run.

Workday · BambooHR · HiBob · Rippling

read+write

HRIS is source of truth for current comp + change execution. Read employee + tenure + level; write approved effective-dated comp changes. Payroll picks up the change on the next cycle.

Radford · Payscale · Levels.fyi · Comp benchmarks

read

External market data per role + level + geo + industry. Refresh cadence typically 30-90 days; older data flagged so approvers know to weight it accordingly.

Comp planning · Budget tracker

read+write

Manager discretionary budgets tracked per fiscal year. Approved requests consume budget; over-budget requests escalate to CFO for either budget increase or reprioritisation.

Lattice · Culture Amp · Performance system

read

Last review outcome, review trend, 360 feedback highlights. Performance context beside comp request so approvers see the full picture.

What changes

Before and after, honestly.

Time from request to decision
Before
4-8 weeks
After
2-5 business days
Manager hours per comp request
Before
3-6 hours (data gathering + slides)
After
10-20 minutes (submit + optional edits)
Retention offers accepted (vs. losing employee)
Before
45-65%
After
75-88% (fast decisions preserve goodwill)
Comp-change audit findings
Before
5-15 per audit (missing reasoning, wrong approver)
After
Zero (packet + audit trail complete)
Related

Playbooks that pair with this one.

HR

Performance Review Cycle Kickoff

Cycle-time comp adjustments flow through the same approval mechanism.

HR

Role & Manager Changes

Promotions often bundled with comp changes; joint approval saves cycles.

HR

Employee Offboarding

Retention offers are the last chance to prevent an offboarding.

Frequently asked

Answers about this playbook.

How does it handle equity + bonus changes, not just base?

Full comp package supported. Equity refresh grants, bonus target adjustments, one-time bonuses all flow through the same request + approval + execution. Multi-year vest impact computed for equity refreshes.

What about retention offers where speed is everything?

Retention-offer flag triggers accelerated approval (SLA 24 hours, priority routing). Manager attestation of competing offer required; some companies require verifiable offer letter attached.

Can it handle comp cycles (annual raises)?

Cycle-mode aggregates every manager's proposed changes into one batch, runs calibration meetings on the same data + budget rollup, approvals happen at team/dept level rather than one-by-one.

How does it maintain internal equity across teams?

Every proposal shows peer distribution + tier bands. Requests exceeding tier max flag for CFO/CPO review. Cross-team calibration meetings run on the same aggregated data.

What about geo-based comp adjustments (remote worker relocation)?

Relocation event triggers comp-review flow. New market data pulled for the new geo; comp adjustment proposed per company remote-comp policy. Same approval chain.

See it run on your data.

Free plan, no credit card. Connect the systems this playbook needs and run it against a past event first.

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