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Preparing a new Compensation template or implementing the Compensation module?

Are you are preparing a new Compensation template for the coming cycle or starting the implementation of the Compensation module? Then now is the time to get updated on the Leading Practices for the configuration of this module as it will ensure an optimal user experience for planners, reviewers, and administrator(s) as well as good performance of the worksheets.

 

Let’s review some key Leading Practices:

 

Comprehensive and concise Form Layout for the Planners

The planners want to focus on the recommendations but still need to have access to the necessary information such as guidelines, comp-ratio and range-penetration and so on. The key here is to have a comprehensive but, concise form layout with friendly labels and clear representation of the calculation. Place the most important information at the left side of the worksheet to avoid scrolling and the less frequently used information at the right side. Make use of the Field Based Permissions to ensure that every role (planner, reviewers, et.) is only seeing the fields that are necessary to achieve their tasks. We recommend to not exceed 15 to 20 fields displayed on the worksheet.

To have a comprehensive worksheet, you want to group the fields together in section and make use of distinctive color headers to logically group the fields. Group sections can be expanded or collapsed by default and you have now the possibility to select multiples columns when collapsed; here also keep an eye on the number of fields displayed on the worksheet and only display the key fields when the section is collapsed.

 

Best way of using the Currency Conversion

Your company is implemented in different countries and is therefore using multiple currencies to make the recommendations in Compensation, here are some important keys to take care in your configuration:

  • Currencies Conversion table entries should contain at least 6 decimals
  • Use a new conversion table for every cycle to be sure to not update previous cycle completed worksheets
  • Use a clear convention name including the year of the cycle for your currency conversion table
  • If you want to use the planner currency view, you need to foresee all the different combination of currency conversion between all the currencies; we do not recommend the use of the planner currency view if you have a lot of currencies
  • To avoid rounding issue, the template should be configured in Local Currency Centric and all salary data should be loaded in the employee’s local currency
  • The same applies to the Pay Matrix that drives the comp-ratio and range penetration; it should be configured with the setting “In local currency” and the salary range data should be loaded in local currency

 

Use of custom fields and formulas to appropriately handle customer requirements

To accommodate all the customer requirements, the system allows the use of custom fields and custom formulas for specifics calculation that can’t be achieved by using the standard fields. Keep in eye to not over complicate your configuration by trying to configure every exception in formula’s. Make use of lookup tables to store values used in formula’s instead of hard coding them, this allows you to update them during the cycle if needed.

Also, years after years, new requirements raise and often lead to a complexity increase of your formulas with nested “if” statements making them hard to understand and maintain. It’s important to not overuse formulas and to keep them understandable. Do not forget to update your workbook and make use of the notes down below the columns in the Design Worksheet sheets to clearly explain the purpose of the formulas.

 

How to correctly make use of Executive Review and Reports

The Executive Review should be enabled based on the Role Based Permissions to allow the necessary granularity depending on the roles that are using it. Since it is the best and easiest way to have a reporting for all roles, planners, reviewers, and administrators should have access to this view regarding the targeted population. For example, administrators should have access to all compensation worksheets while planners should only have access to their direct reports. The Executive Review provides more flexibility to filter on the population, this why reviewers and administrators should make extensive use of this view on top of the reporting possibilities.

Exporting data, modifying them in Excel and reimporting it back in the system is also possible but this functionality should be kept to the administrators only to allow them to import data that otherwise could not be loaded (such as with EC-integrated templates or for legal adjustment that cannot be calculated in the system).

 

How to set up your Advanced Settings for Compensation

When copying your existing templates or importing a new one between instances, the settings of the Advanced Settings tab are always reset to the default. These settings can be changed after the worksheets have been launched or completed but you want to be proactive and thus make sure that the following flags are set up:

  • “Disable Ask For Comment Routing” and “Disable Ask For Edit Routing” should be checked; This will remove the button “Ask for feedback” on the worksheets since with this functionality the worksheets could be sent to someone not intended to have access to this kind of information
  • “Disable Send button for completed documents” should be checked so that a copy of the worksheets is not accidentally sent to unattended persons. This functionality can be temporarily enabled to move, e.g., worksheets from a leaving manager to another. Be sure to disable it once it is done
  • “Enable Roll-up Reports” should be checked for Comp, but not Variable Pay
  • “Allow edit of completed Compensation forms” should NEVER be checked
  • In the most cases, the flag “Do not duplicate employees on worksheets” should be checked

How to use Field Based Permissions in lieu of hiding fields

Since the introduction of Field Based Permissions (FBP) on the template, it is better to not use anymore the flag “Hide this column on the form” but instead unflag all the FBP configured for your template to hide columns. To keep the worksheets comprehensive and concise, some information to understand how guideline behavior, pay range behavior, proration calculation and so on should be hidden by default. Since the FBP are dynamics and can be changed after the forms have been launched, you can still display temporally this hidden information to the administrators in case you need to break down an issue.

 

Statement, what you need to not forget

The discussions around the Statement typically starts during iteration 2 of the project and the configuration should be done for the end of iteration 3. Often, some information not present on the worksheet need to be printed as well on the statement and also information not available in the standard Statement such as merit/adjustment/promotion/lump sum increase percentage want to be printed too. It is thus important to discuss in detail and on time the information that you want to display on the Statement so that the needed custom fields will be available on the worksheet for printing on the Statement (hidden by default).

The system also allows now to suppress statement in case no increase has been entered for employees. Here also a custom field needs to be created for that purpose and be configured on the Settings tab.

 

To learn more join our upcoming, complimentary webinar:

SAP SuccessFactors: Compensation Leading Practices (EN)
on
Feb. 10 2021, 10:00 AM EST

> Register now

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. You will have the opportunity to speak directly with our experts who can guide you and your organization through this module.

#best practices #compensation #HR Path #hr processes #human resources #SAP #sap successfactors #SuccessFactors

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