With Salary Reviews, you can manage your entire salary review process in Factorial, from setting up a cycle and proposing salary increases to approving changes and updating employee contracts. Keep proposals, justifications, approvals, and costs in one place to make salary decisions easier to manage and track.
Salary Reviews is a paid add-on. If you cannot access it, confirm that it is included in your organisation's subscription and that you have the necessary permissions. You can find it under Financial planning → Salary reviews.
Overview
Salary Reviews is a paid add-on that helps HR teams plan, manage, and track salary review cycles directly in Factorial.
With this feature, you can:
- Create salary review cycles: Use the AI agent to set up a cycle based on your requirements.
- Manage salary increases and promotions: Handle both types of changes within the same cycle.
- Stay within budget: Get AI-generated suggestions based on your budget, while retaining the flexibility to approve increases beyond the limit when needed.
- Collaborate with managers: Let managers propose changes for their teams, explain their decisions, and add comments.
- Make informed decisions: If you use Performance, review employee eligibility and performance information before approving a proposal.
- Track progress and costs: Monitor the cycle's status and total cost in an overview, and edit proposals directly in the table.
- Update employee contracts automatically: Apply approved changes to employee contracts using the specified effective date.
- Keep a record of decisions: Store justifications and comments alongside proposals to help you understand why changes were made.
Salary Reviews works independently and can also be used alongside Headcount Planning and Performance for a more connected salary review process.
When and why should you use Salary reviews?
Use Salary Reviews when you need to coordinate salary increases and promotions across your organisation, manage salary review budgets, or give managers and approvers a shared space to make decisions. It is particularly useful for:
- Replacing spreadsheets, email threads, and manual contract updates
- Coordinating salary proposals and approvals across multiple teams
- Aligning salary decisions with your financial planning
- Using performance information to support salary decisions
- Maintaining a clear record of proposed and approved changes
How to use
Create a salary review cycle
You can create a cycle using the AI agent or directly from Financial planning.
- Go to Home and ask One to start a new salary review cycle
- You can go to Financial planning > Salary review > Start cycle
- Describe the salary review you want to run, including the relevant scope and requirements
- Let the AI agent create the cycle based on your instructions
Set the budget and generate salary suggestions
- Use the cycle budget to guide salary increase proposals
- Open the salary review cycle
- Set the budget limit for the cycle
- Ask the AI agent to generate salary increase suggestions
- Review the suggested changes and check how they align with your budget
- If your budget or review scope changes, ask the agent to generate new suggestions
Important: The budget guides the suggestions but does not prevent the cycle from exceeding the limit. You can still approve increases that take the total cost beyond the budget when necessary.
Review proposals for your team
Managers and directors can propose salary changes for the people within their assigned scope.
- Open the salary review cycle
- Go to Employee sheet
- Check the proposed salary change for each person
- To add a proposal, click on Add request
- Add comments where additional context is needed
- Review the information before submitting the proposal for approval
Each proposal keeps its justification and comments alongside the decision, helping approvers understand the reasoning behind the requested change.
If your organisation uses Performance, you can use performance review information to help assess salary proposals. Eligibility is based on your configured guidelines and the employee's performance information.
Performance is an optional dependency. If you do not use Performance, this eligibility information may not be available.
Review and approve salary changes
Use the salary review workflow to review proposals and record approval decisions.
- Open the cycle overview to check its progress and total cost
- Switch to the table view to review or edit proposals directly
- Check the proposed changes, justifications, comments, and any available performance information
- Review the proposals according to your organisation's approval process
- Approve the changes that meet your requirements
Approved decisions remain associated with their supporting information, helping you keep track of who decided what and why.
Managers and directors can only see people within their assigned scope. If you cannot see an employee in your team's salary review, check whether the employee belongs to your scope. If the employee is missing and should be included, contact your HR administrator to review the relevant access and cycle settings.
Tips and best practices
- Define your budget before generating suggestions. A clear budget helps the agent provide recommendations aligned with your financial planning.
- Regenerate suggestions when circumstances change. If you update the budget or the employees included in the cycle, request fresh suggestions.
- Use Performance to support decisions. When available, review eligibility and performance information before approving increases.
- Monitor the total cost throughout the cycle. Use the overview to understand how proposed changes affect your budget.
- Review changes before approval. Check the proposal, supporting information, and effective date to reduce errors.
- Use Headcount Planning alongside Salary reviews. Connecting salary decisions to workforce planning helps keep changes aligned with your organization's financial and staffing plans.
FAQ
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Can I manage salary increases and promotions in the same cycle?
Yes. Salary Reviews supports merit increases and promotions within the same cycle. Support for collective agreements is coming soon.
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Does the budget prevent me from approving an increase that exceeds the limit?
No. The budget guides the agent's suggestions but does not block decisions that exceed the limit. You can still approve an increase when needed.
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Can I generate new salary suggestions after creating a cycle?
Yes. You can ask the AI agent to generate fresh suggestions at any point in the cycle, including after changing the budget or review scope.
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Can managers see salary proposals for the entire organisation?
No. Directors and managers can only see the people within their assigned scope.
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Do I need Performance to use Salary Reviews?
No. Salary Reviews works independently. However, if you use Performance, proposals can include eligibility information based on your guidelines and the employee's performance.
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Are approved salary changes automatically added to employee contracts?
Yes. Once a change is approved, Factorial updates the employee's contract with the specified effective date. The change also appears in Compensation.
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Is Salary Reviews available in my country?
Salary Reviews is available in all markets from launch. It is a paid add-on, so availability in your organisation's subscription should be confirmed with your Factorial administrator.
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Do I need Headcount Planning to use Salary Reviews?
No. Salary Reviews works on its own. It works best alongside Headcount Planning, which helps connect salary changes to your workforce plan.