By integrating seamlessly with Workday’s broader human capital management suite, the Merit Process enables HR teams and managers to allocate salary increases fairly and strategically. With real-time analytics, configurable guidelines, and automated workflows, Workday ensures transparency and consistency throughout the merit assignment and adjustment process.
This article explores how the Workday Merit Process streamlines compensation planning, aligns rewards with performance, and supports organizations in fostering a motivated and engaged workforce.
Understanding the Merit Process
The merit process is an annual process for entering and approving merit, equity, promotion increases, and merit lump sum awards for multiple employees simultaneously. By reviewing employee eligibility, award calculations, and grid configurations, merit-based processes help organizations manage, track, and optimize employee compensation and awards, including merit, equity, promotion increases, and merit lump sum.
The Workday Merit Process is designed to help organizations manage employee compensation adjustments based on performance, market trends, and business goals. Workday’s intelligent merit processes provide intelligent forms, documents, and job aids to support accurate merit assignment and tracking, ensure timely compensation review dates, and optimize total rewards across business units.
Preparing for the Merit Cycle
The merit review and adjustment process is designed to streamline award entries and approvals, ensuring employees receive the right compensation, promotion increases, and bonuses within each pay period. As teams prepare for an upcoming merit cycle, compensation administrators are responsible for defining the merit plan and configuring the merit process, which funds the complete merit pool.
Once the compensation administrator or manager has defined the merit process, they assign the merit plan to employees and determine their eligibility for the merit compensation event. Managers are also responsible for reviewing and submitting merit increase proposals for review.
Configuring the Merit Process
The Workday Merit Process can be configured to support critical use cases, such as modifying merit awards based on external metrics or providing guidance to stock planners and partners. By including key metrics for base pay, regular pay, and stock plans, Workday’s merit processes allow organizations to ensure accurate compensation review and track critical merit increases as needed.
The Custom List functionality within the Workday Merit system enables planners and other users to create pseudo-custom editable fields, making it easier to input values used for critical reporting and validation processes. By leveraging Custom Lists without an associated calculation, planners can select values that are retained as information only, further streamlining the merit assignment and adjustment process.
Managing Compensation Reviews
The compensation review process in Workday Advanced Compensation involves reviewing compensation data, including compensation, process, and review. By leveraging Workday’s intelligent compensation review and analysis software, employees can track important merit dates, including the employee visibility date and process period end date. Here’s a closer look at each type of date:
- Employee visibility date: The date after which Workday will display compensation data for employee review and management.
- Process period end date: The date that determines which employees are eligible for inclusion in the current compensation review process.
Merit Process Best Practices
Here are a few key best practices for ensuring a successful merit review and adjustment cycle:
- Establish clear and consistent criteria for merit adjustments based on performance, role, and market benchmarks.
- Leverage Workday’s configurable guidelines to ensure alignment with organizational goals and fairness.
- Ensure managers have the right permissions and access rights to complete the merit process and utilize advanced features and configurations.
- Train managers on using the Merit Process tool effectively and involve them in planning to facilitate input and alignment with team goals.
- Integrate performance review data into the Merit Process to ensure salary adjustments reflect contributions and encourage high performance.
- Utilize Workday’s budget tracking tools to ensure merit increases stay within allocated limits and align with financial plans.
Workday Merit Process Resources
Workday offers various built-in resources to support a successful merit process, including forms, reference guides, and other critical job aids. Here are a few specific examples of resources within the Workday Merit Process:
- Workday Merit SOR Form: (Statement of Responsibility) Used to enter and approve merit awards.
- Workday Merit Configuration Worksheet: Used to configure critical merit settings in Workday.
- Other Workday resources: Include Entering Merit Awards, Managing Employee Participation in Merit, and Merit Reports – Compensation Changes and Awards.
How Can We Help?
From assessing your current Workday setup and identifying critical improvement areas to navigating complex configurations across your Workday landscape and facilitating effective integration across Workday and non-Workday solutions, Surety Systems can help.
Our senior-level Workday consultants have the skills and experience to understand your key project needs and prepare your internal teams for long-term innovation and improvement.
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