Defining Eligibility

To determine who is eligible for merit raises, salary increases, promotions, etc., you can define eligibility rules that work as filters. First, the starting point of eligibility should be decided. Options include: 

• All active employees are eligible
• No employees are eligible

Rules can be defined at three levels:

• Compensation plan template level: At this level, rules define who should be included (or excluded) in the planning cycle.
• Component level: At this level, rules define who should be included (or excluded) in the Salary, Bonus, and Stock tabs. If users appear on the worksheet but are ineligible for one of the components, their names will appear, but all data will be grayed out.
• Field level: At this level, rules can be applied for promo, merit, extra, extra2, lumpSum, lumpSum2, stock, options, stockUnits, stockOther1, stockOther2, and stockOther3. If a user is ineligible for one of these fields, the field will be grayed out, so the compensation planner can't edit the field.

• Eligibility rules serve as filters to identify employees eligible for merit raises, salary increases, promotions, etc., with starting points such as all active employees being eligible or none. Rules can be applied at three levels:
• Plan Template Level: At this level, rules determine which employees are included or excluded from the overall planning cycle, setting broad criteria for participation.
• Component Level: Here, rules specify eligibility for individual components like Salary, Bonus, and Stock tabs. While ineligible users still appear on worksheets, their data is grayed out to prevent updates.
• Field Level: Eligibility rules apply to specific fields—promo, merit, lump sums, stock options, etc.—and ineligible fields for a user will be grayed out.

Based on the content in this section, please review the list of implementation decisions your company may need to make before implementation begins and discuss them with your stakeholders, project team, and SAP SuccessFactors implementation consultants. In this way, you will be better prepared to begin the implementation.

• In your organization, who are the compensation planners currently?
• Which of the three structures will you use: standard suite hierarchy, rollup hierarchy, or custom hierarchy?
• Does the compensation planner differ by planning element? For example, does the direct manager conduct merit planning, but is stock planning only performed by employees at a certain level?
• Is your current plan a global program?
• Is everyone in agreement on how to proceed globally?
• If so, do they have standard processes/approaches?
• Who is eligible for what types of compensation?
• Can eligibility be defined by a formula with data in your HRIS? Are there exceptions? If yes, what are these exceptions?
• What compensation-related components are relevant to you (merit, promotion, adjustment, lump sum, etc.)?
• Is proration used for any of the components? If so, what are the proration rules?
• Are performance ratings used to drive any of the components? If so, where do they come from?
• What are the guidelines for each component? Are guideline limits hard or soft?
• If a compensation planner’s entry is out of guidelines, should a comment be required or forced? If so, for which components?
• What benchmark is used? Compa-ratio or range penetration?
• Do you use multiple currencies? If so, how will the rate table be managed? Will the plan be defaulted to local or functional currency?
• Who will ensure pay matrices are correct and formatted for SAP SuccessFactors Compensation?
• Is there a budget for any/all of these compensation components? If so, how is the budget determined? Is it the same globally or does it differ by organizational unit? Are budget limits hard or soft?