With the H1 2021 release comes the latest features to be moved from xml only configuration into the Compensation Home user interface to be configured by administrators.  Included in this is both the salary validation rules and forced comment rules.  In this blog I will cover the salary validation rules.

To Enable:

This functionality needs to be permissioned in role based permissioning before it can be used.  The permission is found under Administrator Permissions> Manage Compensation > Manage Standard Validation Rules.

Salary Validation Rules

The salary validation rules allow us to configure threshold rules based on the final compa-ratio or final range penetration values.  We can then drive system behaviour based on whether the rule has not been met or has been exceeded.

Let’s look at a few examples:

This is the below configuration in the new template menu under Plan Setup> Design Worksheet> Define Standard Validation Rules.

Example 1:

In the first configured salary rule example, when an individual employee’s merit increase results in their final compa-ratio exceeding 120%, the planner will be warned.  A specific warning message can be configured here and it appears as a pop up message.  Since the configuration is to warn the planner, they are not forced to make any changes and can still save the form.

Example 2:

Sometimes the salary plan rules dictate a more prescriptive approach to salary increases and we want the module to prevent a planner from progressing if they enter an increase that puts an employee above the top of the salary band.  In this second example, to achieve this we can configure the below which says if an employee’s merit increase results in their final position in range exceeding 100%, disallow the change.  With this configuration the planner will not be able to save the form if the rule is violated.  The planner is forced to correct the error before progressing.

Example 3:

The third example is typically used for employees who are close to the top of their salary band.  In this example the organisation wants to prevent an increase input by a planner that would put the employee’s salary over the salary band maximum.  In this case we can configure a rule that grants the employee a merit increase to take them to the top of the salary band and allows the planner to pay the remainder of the merit increase in the form of a one time lump sum payment.  This is configured in the below screenshot using the splitOrWarn option in ‘Action Taken When Exceed’.

It is also possible to set the rule to splitOrDisallow which would allow the planner to send the value above the top of the salary band to lump sum or not allow the increase at all.  With this configuration, the disallow component would prevent a planner from saving if the rule has been violated.

It should be noted that both splitOrDisallow and splitOrWarn functions do not impact default merit increases that put an employee’s salary above the band maximum based on guidelines.  These rules work best when the default merit increase is 0 and the planner inputs a value from within the guideline range.

Note – Additional options exist for the following:

• Action Trigger = Below
  • Specifies what behaviour should trigger when the threshold value is not met
  • Options for this setting are only warn or disallow
  • This setting is only applicable to the merit field

Moving this functionality out of the xml and into the UI is another great step by the product team to enable our compensation system administrators.