Compensation Review Cycle

1. You are here:
2. GitLab's Guide to Total Rewards
3. Compensation
4. Compensation Review Cycle

On this page

• Introduction
• Compensation Review Cycle
• Annual Compensation Review
  • Process overview
  • Annual Compensation Review Timeline
  • Manager Review
    • Manager Review in Compaas
    • Iterations to Compaas
    • Communicating Compensation Increases
    • Compensation Increases for FY 2022
  • FY 2022 Annual Compensation Review Budget
• Catch-up Compensation Review

Introduction

On this page, we explain how we review our Compensation Calculator and carry out the Compensation Review Cycle.

Compensation Review Cycle

GitLab goes through 2 compensation reviews:

1. Annual Compensation Review - Happens in the fourth quarter of each year. This is when Compensation Calculator inputs are reviewed and when majority of compensation is reviewed for team members. Any changes will be processed with an effective date of February 1st.
2. Catch-up Compensation Review - For team members hired in November to January. The process starts in August with an effective date of September first.

Annual Compensation Review

The Annual Compensation Review process is currently undergoing iteration and the most up to date timeline can be reviewed in the Total Rewards Schedule.

During the fourth quarter of each year, the Compensation & Benefits team will conduct a compensation review to ensure all team members are paid based on survey data in the compensation calculator. This is not a Cost of Living Adjustment, but instead a review of market changes. Location Factor and Compa Group will continue to be a part of the compensation calculator equation.

The annual compensation review is not directly linked to performance reviews nor the ability to be promoted. Other companies may tie compensation to performance reviews where each team member is rated on a performance scale with a corresponding compensation increase. GitLab’s takes a market based pay approach to annual compensation review by 1) assessing market changes in the compensation calculator inputs and 2) to review the Compa Group of team members to ensure alignment within the range.

The increase percentage may vary for each person. For instance, compa groups are reviewed as part of a compensation adjustment or promotion, which GitLab encourages to happen independently from this review. 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 compa group range taking any budget constraints into account.

Process overview

View the enlarged version of the process

Annual Compensation Review Timeline

1. Benchmarks and Location Factors
   • The Compensation & Benefits team will review all benchmarks and location factors associated with the Compensation Calculator and propose revised inputs to the Compensation Group for approval/implementation.
2. Compa Ratios
   • The Compensation & Benefits team will reach out the managers to obtain compa groups for each active team member with a hire date on or before October 31st.
   • Manager will then use the Compa Group Guidelines to assess each team member's classification within their current position.
   • Managers will add this compa group as a request in BambooHR which is also approved by the manager's manager. Instructions on how to do so can be found in the determining section.
   • Once all requests have been reviewed and approved the executive leaders of each group will review the breakdown with the Compensation & Benefits team along with the People Business Partner for their group.
     • In this breakdown, leaders will be able to analyze all individual compa groups, the distribution of compa groups overall and by department, as well as a gender distribution audit. Compensation will outline any concerns based on the aggregated data for the leader and people business partner to review.
   • Remember that this is also a good time to update your team’s position description if it does not reflect the role.
   • Compa Groups should be submitted to BambooHR no later than November 30th.
3. Using the revised inputs, the Compensation & Benefits team will calculate a proposed increase for each team member using the exchange rate as of 2020-01-01.
4. Manager Review in Compaas
   • All indirect managers will also review the increases compared to their budget.
   • Each division leader is responsible for making sure their group stays within budget. The company has a 6% budget for all COLA and Market Adjustments.
   • Depending on budget constraints, the increases for the individual team members may be adjusted up or down by management and reviewed by Compensation & Benefits.
5. Once the People Group gives the ok: Managers will inform the team members of the increase and adjustments to compensation compared to their compa group.
6. Total Rewards Analysts will update BambooHR, and notify all payroll providers to be effective February 1st. Letters of adjustment are not necessary for annual compensation review changes.

Manager Review

As part of the new Annual Compensation Review, managers will review, approve, and where necessary update the proposed salary increases to ensure that we are paying each team member to market. Please verify the compensation calculator inputs (compa group, level, title) are accurate.

It is very important that GitLab team-members understand their compa group and how it impact their salary.

While some GitLab team-members may not receive an increase due to already being at the right competitive rate for their Comp Group, 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 their experience and market 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.

Manager Review in Compaas

Compaas is GitLab's compensation platform where managers can login, review, change, and submit their proposed increases during Annual Compensation Review.

Process for slate owners:

1. Navigate to Compaas and select the option to sign in with Google.
2. Select to sign in with your originally assigned GitLab email address.
   • If you select to sign in with an alias, you will receive an error and not be able to sign in. You can confirm your original GitLab email address on the Personal tab of BambooHR.
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3. Once you have logged in, you will see your slate. This will have the status of your budget, along with a card for each of the team members you will be recommending a raise for.
4. The card will list the team member's name, role, benchmark role, level, compa group, compensation, adjusted compensation, discretionary raise, final compensation, and notes.
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   • The role is located under the team member's name. This is the team member's job title including level, for example, Senior or Associate.
   • Underneath the role is the benchmark role. This is the job title that is used for determining the base compensation before other inputs such as level are evaluated. For example, the benchmark role for a Senior Backend Engineer is a Backend Engineer.
   • Next to the team member's name is their level. This is a job code used internally that is unique to each role.
   • Next to the level is the compa group. These were selected by managers for each of their reports in November.
   • The Compensation Before is the number in gray and is the team member's current compensation. The Compensation Adjusted is the recommended compensation based on changes to location factor, role benchmark, and bringing the team member to the bottom of the range if they received an increase in compa group.
   • Discretionary Raise is money that can be allocated to a team member to bring them higher in their compa group range. This can be allocated as either a cash amount or percentage.
   • The talk bubble at the right of the team member's card can be clicked on to leave a note on the employee's record. This can be used to record reasons for decisions, details about specific compensation change, or open questions for approvers or HR.
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5. Clicking the background of the person's card expands it to reveal their compensation timeline. The timeline shows any historical compensation data Compaas has available for each person. Clicking the card again closes the timeline.
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6. The slate can be saved as a draft at any time. When you choose to "Save and Submit", you will see a screen summarizing your proposed raises. You may choose to cancel, leaving the slate in a draft state, or "Submit and Lock" which automatically submits your recommendations for approval.
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7. Once the slate has been submitted for approval, it will be locked. You will no longer be able to make changes, but while the annual compensation cycle is open you will be able to log in and review your team's compensation adjustments.
   • If any changes are made by a slate approver, these will be visible in your review screen.
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Process for approvers:

1. Approvers will log in using the same instructions as slate owners.
2. Once logged in, you will be taken to a slate review screen. This page shows the status of your budget, along with a card for each of the slates you will be approving or editing. Each card will have the status of the slate, the name of the slate owner, number of reports, each individual slate's budget, how much of the budget has been allocated, how much of the budget is left, currency (all in USD), and associated notes accessible by clicking the talk bubble at the right of the card.
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3. Clicking the slate name or the > arrow will take you to a slate. Slates that are not ready for approval will not be available to select. If you need to override a slate approval, please reach out to compensation as only admins can submit on behalf of another account. When you view a slate on your list, you will be able to edit the slate owner's recommendations and save them. Once you have saved, please refresh the page to see the changes applied to your budget, if applicable. For more information on the details located on each team member's card, please review item 4 in the process for slate owners above.
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4. Once you are finished making edits to a slate you are an approver for, you can choose to "Save & Approve". You will be taken to a screen summarizing the proposed raises. You may choose to cancel, leaving the slate unapproved, or "Submit and Approve" which automatically submits your recommendations for approval to anyone higher up in the approval chain. It is recommended that you keep all slates in draft form until you are ready to approve all slates in your group. Once you submit you will not longer be able to make any changes.
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5. After you have approved a slate, it will no longer be editable on your list of slates. Any budget allocated to the approved slate will be reserved and deducted from your budget total. After approving, you will still be able to visit the slate and view a current summary of any proposed compensation adjustments including any adjustments made by an approver higher up in the approval chain.
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Iterations to Compaas

January 2020 was the first annual compensation review using Compaas. Based on some awesome feedback from our GitLab team, we are working to have the following iterations to our process in Compaas before the next cycle. 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.

• Implement Proxy Access for People Business Partners
• Self Reporting from Compaas for Admins
• Once slates are submitted, the ability to see more detail (e.g. compa group, percent change, etc)
• Market vs COLA percentage increases to understand the context behind the min comp increase
• Ability to see the compensation calculator bands within compaas
• Ability to delete notes as a slate owner
• Managers and team members to be able to log in and see where they fall in compensation for Compaas Analytics
• Approver and slate owner navigation so you don't have to toggle back and forth, but instead everything is in once place
• Ability to move team member to another slate (due to a manager change for example)
• Ability to approve slates for an approver as an Admin
• Ability to update budgets as an Admin
• Ability to review who has/has not logged in with which ID and which permissions
• Show promotion/comp change history for managers to have additional context to percent increase
• Mobile responsive
• Rounding practices: Currently in Compaas as x% instead of x.xx%. Alternatively, should GitLab implement rounding up of salary?

Communicating Compensation Increases

All increases for Annual Compensation Review will be finalized by Feb 1st. FY 2021 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 27th until Feb 13th for Employees and until Feb 6th for Contractors. Managers will have the ability to communicate any increases to their team before end of day on the 6th for Contractors and end of day on the 13th for Employees.

Sample communication: "The manager review process for annual compensation review is complete. Based on your compa group evaluation of x, you are receiving an increase of x%."

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: ((FY21 Salary-FY20 Salary)/FY20 Salary).

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.

Compensation Increases for FY 2022

In the FY22 compensation review cycle, team members will be aligned to their market rate in line with the compensation calculator. The Total Rewards Team is working through alternate options in collaboration with the People Group on implementing a minimum performance increase in the following issue.

FY 2022 Annual Compensation Review Budget

In FY21, the budget was 6% of all team members as of October 31, 2019. For the next compensation review which will take place from November 2020 to January 2021 to be effective for Fiscal Year 2022, we will separate the promotion and annual compensation review budget for the following conditions:

1. Promotion Budget
   • Assume 12% of the team is promoted with an average of a 10% increase to OTE.
2. Annual Compensation Review Budget
   • 6% of those who were not promoted. Therefore 6% of 88% of the population.
3. Relocation Budget
   • Relocations are not considered in the budget. Theoretically throughout the year, there would be a net zero from those moving to hire cost and lower cost regions.
4. Budget Rollovers: The budget from annual compensation review can rollover into the catch up compensation review or the promotion budget for that fiscal year. For example, if Engineering has 20,000 USD left after the FY22 annual compensation review process, they can use these funds for promotions in FY22. At the end of each fiscal year, the budgets will reset.
5. Budgets cannot be transferred to a different division.

Calculating Budget Actuals

1. Promotion Budget
   • At the beginning of each quarter, the Total Rewards team will calculate what the budget is for each Division to be managed by the executive of the group.
   • Take total OTE (TTC) as of the first day of the quarter x 12% x 10% / 4 to get to the actual for that quarter.
   • Any additional increases over budget must be approved by the CPO and CFO and may be taken from the following quarter's pool
   • Per Divison, any unused funds for promotions can be rolled over per quarter, if after Q4 there are unused funds they can be added to the annual compensation review budget.
   • Considerations when reviewing increases in BambooHR:
     • Any promotion with a percent increase of more than 10% to base salary must be approved by the CPO
     • Any promotion where the employee has had less than one year of tenure in the current level must be approved by the CPO
     • Any promotion to Director and above must be approved by the Compensation Group
   • The Compensation & Benefits team will track and report on budgets throughout the quarter as part of the team member spend KPI
2. Annual Compensation Review Budget
   • Per Division take the total OTE (TTC) of the group as of October 31st x 88%. Remove any overspend or allocate additional budget per division from the promotion budget.
   • Verify totals with the Manager, FP&A.

Administering the Promotion Budget Quarterly

1. After the spend per team member metric is completed each month, the Total Rewards team will notify the People Business Partner, Finance Business Partner, and Leader of the group how much is remaining in their current budget for promotions in that quarter via email.

Catch-up Compensation Review

For team members hired between November 1st and January 31st, participating only in the annual compensation review may mean their compensation is not reassessed for up to 15 months. GitLab has incorporated a catch up review conducted in August for anyone hired in November, December, or January of the previous year. For example, any new hires in Nov 2019 - Jan 2020 would be reviewed in August 2020.

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 compa group alignment (if any). Team members should not expect an increase, but instead understand that their compensation is being reviewed to ensure alignment to market.

All changes will follow the same process as the annual compensation review timeline with an effective date of September 1st.