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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2025-03-14
Manage Compensation Review Pools

Manage Compensation Review Pools

Initiate a compensation review process.
Workday automatically calculates pool amounts from the bottom up. Workday uses the plan definitions selected when you initiate the process and the employees identified in the
Manage Impacted Employees
 step to calculate the individual employee target amounts for each award type. Workday adds the individual employee target amounts to determine the estimated cost and the initial pool amounts.
When you're using statutory minimums, Workday calculates an employee's individual target amount as the higher percentage of the plan target and the statutory minimum. Example: If a plan target is 3.0% and the statutory minimum is 2.0%, the employee individual target amount is 3.0%.
You can change the initial pool amounts and adjust the pool amounts for individual merit, bonus, and stock plans by selecting the
Top-Down
 option.
Before configuring pools, consider whether you need to recalculate bonus pools with these tasks:
  • Compensation Review Recalculate Bonus Targets
    .
  • Recalculate Pool and Awards
    .
  1. Access the My Tasks item for the compensation review process.
  2. As you complete the
    Pool Controls
     section, consider:
    Option Description
    Allow Pool Holdbacks
    Select to enable the distribution of less than 100 percent of the pool amounts to the organizations.
    Allow Pool Overage
    Select to enable managers to give awards greater than the assigned pool amount when proposing awards.
    This displays as selected and read-only if you hid any award type in the
    Pool and Spend
     section on the
    Create Compensation Review Options
     task.
    Display Remaining Pools
    Select to enable managers to see remaining pool amounts when proposing employee awards.
    Override Statutory Minimum
    Displays only if there's a merit plan in the process with the
    Subject to Statutory Minimum
     check box selected.
  3. As you complete the pool sections, consider:
    Option Description
    Top-Down
    Select this option if you want to set the pool amounts at the top level of the organization.
    Apply Merit Target to Current Target Amounts
    Select to configure a pool based on the merit target of each employee or any configured amount.
    Deduct From Merit Pool
    Select to deduct the spend from the merit pool rather than creating a separate pool. The associated target pool doesn't display to planners, but calculated spend displays in the merit pool.
    Bottom-Up
    Select to have Workday calculate the pool amount and estimated cost based on the employees assigned to the selected merit plans.
    Pool Amount
    If you selected
    Top-Down Calculation
    , specify the portion of the
    Total Eligible Earnings
     to make available for distribution to employees.
    Workday automatically sums all the individual target amounts for the employees assigned to the merit plans included in the process. This updates the
    Percent of Eligible Earning
    .
    Percent of Eligible Earning
    If you selected
    Top-Down Calculation
    , specify the percent of the
    Total Eligible Earnings
     to make available for distribution to employees. This affects the
    Pool Amount
     field.
    Total Eligible Earnings
    Displays the sum of all employee total compensation amounts using either:
    • Total base pay.
    • The total primary compensation bases associated with the plan and assigned to the selected merit plans.
    Estimated Cost
    Displays the sum of all the individual target amounts for the employees assigned to the merit plans in the process.
    Prefill Employee Awards
    Select to have Workday populate employee awards on the compensation review process and display the
    Propose All
     button.
    The
    Prefill Employee Stock Awards
     check box doesn't display if you selected a
    Stock Participation Rate Table
     on the
    Initiate Compensation Review Process
     task.
    Depending on how you configured Autofill and Pre-Fill options on the
    Create Compensation Review Options
     task, Workday populates award values for:
    • Compensation Matrix
      : To the midpoint of the matrix.
    • Target
      : With the funded, prorated target associated with the plans.
  4. As you complete additional adjustments, allowance plans, lump sums, and promotions, consider:
    Option Description
    Deduct From Merit Pool
    Select to deduct awards made to employees during the process from the merit pool rather than from a separate pool.
    If you don't select this check box, Workday creates a separate pool for the award.
    Distribute to Organizations
    If you're creating a separate pool, selecting this check box enables you to distribute the pool to supervisory organizations.
    Compensation Basis
    Available when the
    Deduct From Merit Pool
     check box is cleared. Workday determines the list of values from the compensation bases associated with employees from the selected merit plans.
    Percent of Compensation Basis
    Available when the
    Deduct From Merit Pool
     check box is cleared. Workday calculates total eligible earnings by:
    • Identifying employees assigned to the merit plans selected for the process.
    • Summing the total compensation amount for these employees using the selected compensation basis.
  5. (Optional) Click
    Review Plan Funding
     to adjust a specific plan funding amount.
    You can adjust the pool amounts for individual merit, bonus, and stock plans. Doing so affects the total pool amount and Workday automatically selects the
    Top-Down
     option.
    The Funding % automatically populates 100 percent for merit and stock plans. The funding percent for bonus plans equals the weighted result % of the plan funding scorecard. You can change the percentage to less than or greater than 100.
  6. Distribute pool amounts.
    During the
    Distribute Pool
     step of the compensation review process, Workday estimates organizational-level pools for each award type based on the plans you selected at process initiation.
    Whether holdbacks or remaining pools display depends on:
    • The plans you selected for the process.
    • Your selection on the
      Allow Pool Holdbacks
       check box.
    • Your role in the organization structure. You can see the holdbacks of subordinate organizations but not those of superior organizations.
    Workday initially sets holdbacks and remaining pools to zero but they can change as you distribute pool amounts to organizations. Workday subtracts the distributed amount from the total pool to calculate holdbacks.
    When you submit, Workday recalculates pool distributions and updates the actual pools, taking into account any changes made during the
    Distribute Pool
     step. Workday might create organizational pool adjustments, both positive and negative, to persist the top-level pool. Workday also takes into account any employee pools removed during the
    Distribute Pool
     step.
    You can also access the
    Recalculate Pool and Awards
     task.
  7. Enter the estimated pool amounts or units that you want to distribute to each organization in the
    Pool Distribution Summary
    .
    When you change an estimated amount for a parent organization, Workday adjusts each child organization proportionally.
    Example:
     The Sales & Marketing hierarchy has a Sales organization and a Marketing organization, each with a pool of 100 USD for a total pool of 200 USD. If you change the total pool of 200 USD to 150 USD, Workday reduces both the Sales and Marketing pools by 25% to 75 USD. The holdback amount is 50 USD.
    Review the estimated cost of the awards for the company to the actual distributed pool amounts plus holdbacks. You can apply the original contribution, the new contribution, or replace the original contribution for employees manually removed from the process.
    For the merit awards, the values include any additional awards, lump sums, promotions, and one-time payments.
    Total Process Award Pools
     are pool amounts for additional award types where you didn't select
    Deduct From Merit Pool
     and
    Distribute to Organizations
    .
  8. (Optional) Click
    Compensation Review Process Maintain Pools
    .
    As you make adjustments for each
    Organization
     and award type, Workday:
    • Locks the pools so that no other task that adjusts pools can complete until you click
      Review
       or
      Cancel
      .
    • Adds the
      Distribution
       amount to the appropriate
      Holdback
       when you reduce or remove it.
    You can use the
    Pool Reserve
     column to increase the overall pool after you initiate the process without affecting employee targets. Example: Senior management distributes additional stock several days after the compensation review process starts. You can add a
    Pool Reserve
     to the top-level organization to distribute the additional stock to employees.
    If the
    Compensation Review Process Maintain Pools
     task is locked and the administrator owning the lock is unavailable to unlock it, use the
    Unlock Compensation Review Maintain Pools Sessions
     task. When you unlock a pool maintenance session, Workday discards any pending changes.
    Example:
     Keith left for vacation without submitting his changes. Kristen accesses the
    Unlock Compensation Review Maintain Pools Sessions
     task to unlock Keith's pool maintenance session. Workday discards Keith's changes, but Kristen accesses the pool maintenance task, makes updates, and submits. The compensation review then moves forward.
  9. Click
    Launch
    .
You can Review the
Pool Spend Analysis
 charts.
The
Total Process Award Pools
 section displays pool amounts for additional award types where you didn't select
Deduct From Merit Pool
 during the
Configure Merit Pools
 step. You can select or clear the
Calculated
 check box to apply or remove calculations that impact each award type amount and the total amount.