On this page, we explain how we review our Compensation Calculator and carry out the Compensation Review Cycle.
If you have any feedback or questions about the compensation review cycle, please contact Total Rewards.
GitLab goes through 2 compensation reviews:
The most up to date timeline of the Annual Compensation Review process can be found in the Total Rewards Schedule.
During the fourth quarter of each year, the Total Rewards team will conduct a compensation review to ensure all team members are paid based on market rates in the compensation calculator. This is not a Cost of Living Adjustment, but instead a review of market changes. Location Factor will continue to be a part of the compensation calculator equation.
Increases for Compensation Review Cycles are based on 1) assessing market changes in the compensation calculator inputs and 2) performance in the role.
The increase percentage may vary for each person. If a team member was recently adjusted, the annual adjustment might yield no additional salary during the annual compensation review. This review acts as a sweep for each team member’s compensation to be evaluated at least once per year. If there is an increase in Location Factor and/or Benchmark, team members affected will have the new location factors applied to their compensation, but would not receive an automatic percent increase. For example, if the location factor in a region increases by 10% the team member will not receive an automatic 10% adjustment. The team member would receive an increase aligned to their benchmark, location factor, and performance taking any budget constraints into account.
All team members hired on or before October 31st will be eligible to be evaluated as part of the Annual Compensation Review cycle. Team members hired after this date will be reviewed to ensure their salary does not fall below the bottom of their compensation band based on increases to benchmark or location factor. If this does occur, the team member will be adjusted to the bottom of the band during the Annual Compensation Review cycle.
The Total Rewards team and People Business Partners both play a vital role in ensuring the success of Annual Compensation Review. The Total Rewards team handles more of the "big picture" company-wide in the set up and administration of Annual Compensation Review while the People Business Partners take on more of the "details" related to their division.
The Total Rewards team is responsible for setting up Annual Compensation Review, analytics, audits, and general communication. This includes (but is not limited to):
People Business Partners work with their teams to address any problems, help the Total Rewards team with communications, and help their team/executive review Compaas and any analyses that are created. This can include (but not limited to):
Benchmarking review is an internal process completed by the Total Rewards team to determine any adjustments to role benchmarks for the next FY.
Benchmarking Analysis
sheet for the upcoming FY.Job Codes
sheet are in the Benchmarking Analysis
and pull in updated Radford and Comptryx job codes.Job Codes
sheet to refresh the current FY21 benchmarks. Compare our current benchmarks to the median of the 50th and 75th of the survey data (depending on the role) and make any recommendations based on market fluctuations.The benchmark review is completed in November.
The location factor review is an internal process completed by the Total Rewards team to determinate any adjustments to location factors for the next FY.
Location Factor Review
sheet for the upcoming FY.ERI
Location Factor Review
sheet in the ERI tab.Robert Half
Dice
Radford
Radford Data
sheet for both the Global Technology Survey and Global Sales Survey. In the Select Jobs dropdown, select All Jobs. In the Data Elements dropdown, select ACR. Click Save & Run. Navigate to the reports tab to download once the report has finished running. Note that more than one report can be run at a time.Radford Data
sheet, combining the Global Tech and Sales Surveys.Comptryx
Comptryx Data
sheet.The location factor review is completed in November. It can be completed once the October ERI data refresh has been updated.
The Total Rewards team will run an audit twice throughout the Compensation Review Process to review any statistically relevant bias for underrepresented groups: after the Performance Factor submissions (December) to review distribution of performance ratings and after Manager Review (January) to review the distribution of discretionary increase allocations.
This analysis will be conducted at the department level, for each department leader to review, as well as all other indirect leaders up to the e-group level. The executive of each division as well as their People Business Partner will address any concerns with the performance factors or discretionary increase allocations submitted across their division.
The Total Rewards Team will audit with the following data breakdowns (as aligned in our Identity Data Metrics):
The Total Rewards team has created a template to automatically sync for each department leader, indirect manager, and overall e-group leader by adding the information submitted into a master file for increased efficiency in data analysis.
The People Business Partner should familiarize themself with the output of this analysis and what has been flagged. They will review any issues that have been flagged with the leader of their division and advise Total Rewards of any changes.
This will calculate the minimum amount necessary to ensure the team member is in range and will be loaded into Compaas as the minimum recommended increase from the Total Rewards team.
Comp Data Analysis and Modeling
sheet template, create a new report with all Annual Compensation Review eligible team members.Once all data inputs have been finalized, before Annual Compensation Review opens.
Review and flag any concerns or possible data errors to the Total Rewards team.
To ensure a smooth process, the Total Rewards team will freeze any compensation changes relating to promotions as part of the Annual Compensation Review process leading into the Manager Review portion of the program. Any compensation or promotion change requests need to be submitted in BambooHR by 2020-12-04 with last available effective date of 2020-12-01 or 2020-12-16. If an exception needs to be made and a compensation change needs to be processed during this time, such as relocations or other reasons, please send an email to Total Rewards.
For internal transfers, Total Rewards will need a list of active applicants from Recruiting on roles as of 2020-12-16. If a team member takes an internal transfer, they will be removed from the Annual Compensation Review process as their compensation will be reviewed per the hiring process.
Any compensation changes that result from Annual Compensation Review will have an effective date of 2021-02-01. If a manager anticipates that a promotion is more suitable to process for a team member, the manager has the option to remove the team member out of the Annual Compensation Review process. If this is the case, please send an email to Total Rewards no later than 2020-12-16.
Promotions and compensation change requests will reopen in BambooHR on 2021-02-01. The effective date for these requests will be processed in the next available payroll date from the time of approval.
Performance Factors are assessed twice per year as part of the Performance/Potential Matrix. The average performance output (developing - performing - exceeding) will be used for annual compensation review.
For FY22 compensation (effective February 1, 2021) we will only have the ability to have one assessment (conducted in November 2020). If a team has already submitted a Performance/Potential Assessment in Q3 FY21, they will not be required to submit another assessment in Q4, but may update their assessment if desired.
The People Group is developing guidelines and the assessment tool for how the Performance Factor will be determined/processed. Related Issue.
Recommendations from Total Rewards for discretionary increases based on performance factor:
Your compensation increase may vary (up or down) from these percentages. These guidelines are meant to help ensure company-wide consistency. Actual increases may vary based on:
Do not expect that the final discretionary increases will fall into these ranges, as performance is only one factor out of many that goes into compensation adjustments.
Managers should take into account any increases the team member received in the last fiscal year (for example, due to promotion, transfer, catch-up compensation review, etc.) or if the team member was recently hired and already aligned to market/performance rates. After a manager determines the performance increase percent, he or she should be able to clearly communicate to the team member how it was derived.
Increases are not capped at 10%. If a manager would like to suggest an increase higher than the guidelines, they will want to add a justification for each indirect manager to review and approve.
If a manager has a team member on their team who is red circled (paid over the top end of the compensation range), in order for the person to receive an increase, they will need to submit a compensation exception request with their People Business Partner to Total Rewards which will then be reviewed and approved by the Compensation Group. The Total Rewards team will notify the People Business Partners of the team members red-circled once the new ranges are set for proactive review.
Once all Performance Factors have been reviewed and approved and the Performance Factor Executive Audit has been complete, managers will be communicated to that they can share the final performance factor with their direct report. This will occur before Annual Compensation Review takes place intentionally so that way it is more focused on the growth and development of the team member rather than how this ties into compensation.
As part of the new Annual Compensation Review, managers and indirect managers will review, approve, and enter proposed salary increases to ensure that we are paying each team member to market and prioritizing increases based on performance while staying aligned to budget. Please verify the compensation review inputs (performance, level, title) are accurate in Compaas.
It is very important that GitLab team-members understand their performance and how it impacts their salary.
While some GitLab team-members may not receive an increase due to already being at the right competitive rate for their Level, Role, and Location, there are other circumstances where an increase should be avoided. If there are any reasons as to why the team member should not receive the proposed increase to be aligned with market rates in our calculator, please email total-rewards@ domain with the reasoning and cc your People Business Partner. This could be due to a current performance issue, pending termination, etc. If you would like to delay the increase, please outline a proposed plan of action and deadline. Team members who are currently struggling to perform at their current level should have that communicated clearly and the manager should consider delaying the increase until performance reaches a commendable level.
Compaas is GitLab's compensation platform where managers can login, review, change, and submit their proposed increases during Annual Compensation Review.
For any feedback about using Compaas during the FY22 Manager Review portion of Annual Compensation Review, please use the following issue.
Process for slate owners:
Process for approvers:
When you review your team member's card in Compaas, you will see the recommended % increase for performance factor, the % increase in benchmark (if applicable), and the % increase in location factor (if applicable). Also, if applicable, there will be a minimum recommended increase to ensure team members end up within their compensation band (Minimum increase by Total Rewards). All the factors should be reviewed and used to develop a holistic increase. We recommend the following steps and best practices:
Person A has the following characteristics:
As Person A's manager, since they haven't been here for very long, I may have been considering giving them a 3-4% increase based on their performance factor. Taking their location factor increase into account, I may increase this to 4-5%.
Person B has the following characteristics:
As Person B's manager, Person B is one of my top performers and I want to compensate them adequately for this. Based on the increases for their location factor and benchmark and their high performance, I may recommend a 12% increase and include a justification for indirect managers to review and approve my recommendation for an increase above 10%.
We have now completed two compensation reviewed utilizing Compaas. Based on some awesome feedback from our GitLab team during Annual Compensation Review and Catch-up Compensation Review, we are working to have the following iterations to our process in Compaas. There are certain items that we may not be able to have implemented since any change to Compaas updates their tool for all clients. Where that is the case we will outline that it is a limitation for future reference.
The following iterations are expected to be live for FY22 Annual Compensation Review:
The following iterations will not be ready to ship in time for FY22 Annual Compensation Review, but we will continue to review having implemented in Compaas:
All increases for Annual Compensation Review will be finalized by Feb 1st. FY 2022 compensation will be uploaded into BambooHR no later than Feb 4th for payroll to make changes in all subsequent systems. The Total Rewards team will turn off the ability to see compensation in BambooHR using Employee or Contractor Self Service from Jan 25th until Feb 12th for Employees and until Feb 5th for Contractors. Managers will have the ability to communicate any increases to their team before end of day on the 5th for Contractors and end of day on the 12th for Employees.
Communication Guidelines can be found in the Leadership Toolkit.
Please note, the % increases in Compaas are rounded up to the nearest whole number. Please either communicate the amount increase or calculate the % increase to at least the hundredths place for communication: ((FY22 Salary-FY21 Salary)/FY21 Salary)
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If your direct report has any questions on the calculation of their increase please feel free to have them reach out to the Total Rewards team.
For Fiscal Year 2022, the promotion and annual compensation review budget is separate and calculated based on the following conditions:
Calculating Budget Actuals
Administering the Promotion Budget Quarterly
Team members hired between November 1st and January 31st or team members who did not receive an increase during the most recent annual compensation review due to a recent promotion, compensation adjustment, or for performance may not have their compensation evaluated for more than a year. In order for GitLab to help Managers to be better equipped to retain team members and reward high performers who were not increased during the previous annual compensation review, Managers will be able to recommend team members for targeted mid-year increases.
During the annual compensation review, the budget for these team members is separated out to be used in August. If anyone would fall out of the compensation range, the team member would be adjusted immediately, but this would be deducted from the budget used in August.
This review will only take into account a performance alignment (if any). Team members should not expect an increase, but instead understand that their compensation is being reviewed to ensure alignment to market and performance.
This section will be updated with more detailed steps in FY22.
In August, Managers can log into BambooHR and add a compensation adjustment for any eligible team member they would like to propose for an increase. Managers should complete and link the Mid-year Increase Template in the comments of the request. All approved increases will be effective on September 1.
To be updated for FY22.