Salary Review – Feature & Concept Guide

What is the Salary Review module?

The Salary Review module in Simployer One lets you plan, review, and approve changes to employee compensation in a single, controlled workflow — from initial setup through multi-level approval to the final salary update.

The module supports organisations of different sizes and structures, with the following capabilities:

• A multi-level approval flow with clearly defined roles
• Employment and compensation information displayed directly in the review interface
• Structured comments between participants at each stage of the process
• Flexible budget management, using either a fixed total amount or a percentage per employee
• Multi-currency support with automatic conversion
• Scheduled or immediate launch, with independent notification timing per role
• A full audit history and a read-only archive of completed reviews

Roles in a salary review

Four roles are involved in a salary review. The same person can hold more than one role — for example, the Owner can also be the Final Approver, or one person can be assigned as both Planner and Approver.

Workflow modes: with or without Approvers

A salary review runs in one of two modes, depending on whether a mid-level approval layer is needed.

Mode A – Without Approvers
Used when a middle approval layer isn't required. Planners submit their proposals directly to the Final Approver.

Mode B – With Approvers
Used in organisations with a multi-tier management structure. Planners submit to an Approver, who reviews the proposals and submits them to the Final Approver. An optional additional approver can be added between the Approver and the Final Approver for extra oversight.

Salary review statuses

A salary review itself moves through the following statuses:

Planner statuses

Each Planner's progress within a salary review is tracked with its own status:

Approver statuses

An Approver's status is shown as:

• IN PROGRESS – The Approver needs to distribute the budget to their Planners and click the Send to planners button.

How to set up a salary review

A salary review is configured by the Owner across six tabs before it's published. A salary review can still be edited after creation, up until its scheduled start date.

Complete each of the following tabs in order:

1. Setup – Enter the review name and description, set the base currency, and assign the Final Approver.
2. People – Define the employee scope and assign Planners. You can define which employees are included using one or more of the following options: entire company, selected employees, office/location, department/team, employment type, or exclusions.
3. Approvers – Assign Approvers, and, if you're using Mode B, optionally add an additional approver.
4. Financials – Choose the budget type (Fixed Amount or Percentage per Employee) and set the amount.
5. Notifications – Customise the email subject line and message body for Planners and Approvers, and schedule when each group's notification is sent. Changes to notifications are saved automatically.
6. Overview – Review a summary of the configuration and launch the review.

Once you launch the review (either immediately or on a scheduled date), it moves to NOT STARTED or ACTIVE status, and notifications are sent to Planners and Approvers according to the schedule you set on the Notifications tab.

How budget management works

When setting up a salary review, the Owner chooses one of two budget types on the Financials tab:

In workflow Mode B (with Approvers), the Owner allocates the total budget to Approvers, who then allocate their share to their Planners.

Each participant (Owner, Approver, or Planner) can track the following in their panel:

• Allocated budget
• Used budget
• Current salary spend
• New salary spend

Employment and compensation information

Relevant employment and compensation details for each employee are displayed directly within the Salary Review interface. This gives Planners and Approvers the context they need without having to leave the module.

This information is read-only within the review. From this view, you can also navigate directly to an employee's full profile page.

Comments during a salary review

Comments support structured communication between participants at each stage of the salary review. Comments are scoped by role, so each participant only sees what's relevant to them:

All comments are stored within the workflow and remain visible to relevant participants as a record for follow-up.

The approval workflow

A salary review moves through the following phases when Approvers are used (Mode B):

In Mode A (without Approvers), Planners submit their proposals directly to the Final Approver, skipping the Approver-related phases above.

Rejecting a submission

At any stage, a reviewer can reject a submission and add a comment explaining why. The submission is returned to the previous level for revision and resubmission.

The approval and rejection review table

When reviewing proposals, Approvers and the Final Approver see an overview table with the following columns: