Release Notes

Discover the new features, improvements, and bug fixes for the latest release.

Smart Compensation 1.91

January 22, 2025

What's new

Pay philosophy elements

  • Allow promotional raises via CSV upload: Administrators can now include a promotional increase percentage when uploading a promotions CSV file for pay philosophy. This percentage guides managers to adjust their budgets.

Smart Compensation 1.9

December 4, 2024

What's new

Pay philosophy elements

  • Remediation: A new pay philosophy element automatically adjusts employee compensation to the pay band minimum to address pay issues and reflect market rates. The budget panel will show the total cost of these adjustments.

Incentive plans

  • Incentive plans: You can now create and assign multiple cash bonus plans with a variety of complex formulas to meet your organization's unique needs. We've improved the explanation and calculations to help managers understand the bonus plans. As part of the update, we've included a library of bonus plan calculations to help you get started.

    Note: Data is required for this feature.

Embedded integration

  • SSO support for embedded tenants: We've added authentication support that identifies user type so administrating tenants and the tenants they manage can log in seamlessly with single sign-on.

    Note: Configuration is required for this feature.

Smart Compensation 1.8

November 13, 2024

What's new

Admin setup

  • Set pay band dimension: Administrators can now can select how employees are compared to pay bands by choosing a dimension in cycle settings. Changes to this setting will only apply to newly created cycles and the selected dimension will be used in the merit matrix by displaying pay band information and calculating metrics per employee.
  • Allow entry of pay rationale notes: Administrators can now toggle off the requirement to add a note to justify compensation deviations within the compensation cycle.
  • Preview task budget allocations: Administrators can now see the budgets that will be assigned in the Assign Compensation Tasks stage of the compensation cycle. If budget segmentation is applied, the budget segments will be displayed, along with all pay types included in the cycle.
  • Mandatory minimum increase: Administrators can now select a checkbox when configuring across-the-board increases to make them a mandatory minimum increase. When managers are making adjustments to an employee's compensation, they will receive a warning that they are not able to reduce the minimum increase for employees included in the population.

Pay letter configuration

  • Pay letter settings: Administrators now have more variables to include in their pay letter templates. This includes individual bonus and LTI modifier variables so that you can include that the employee's bonus is being awarded at a certain percentage of target, based on their individual performance and manager discretion.

Smart Compensation 1.7

September 12, 2024

What's new

Workflows

  • Team view: We've updated the user interface for managers to make compensation adjustments more intuitive and efficient. You can now set up the view of the compensation adjustments table to include the columns you need so you have full team visibility while directly editing in the table.
  • Budget segment creator: Administrators can now define budget segments directly under Settings after signing in. These segments will automatically be included in any new cycles you create, enabling you to easily set unique budgets and pay philosophies for different parts of your organization within the same cycle, such as employees in Canada versus the US.

Smart Compensation 1.6

May 29, 2024

What's new

Pay types

  • Bulk upload additional amounts: Administrators can now bulk upload a list of additional grants or awards for a pay type in the review stage.

Smart Compensation 1.5

February 21, 2024

What's new

Workflows

  • Administrator workflow improvements: We've updated the user interface for administrators to simplify project creation and allow more flexibility and scenario planning during setup. Now, all stages prior to release to managers are open. Administrators can adjust budgets, pay philosophies, and task assignments freely to get the right balance of objectives and budget set up before locking the cycle in.
  • Adjustment change notes: Notes now contain the change associated with the note, including what was changed and who made the change, and appear any time adjustments are being made for an employee.

Pay bands

  • Promoted employee pay band change details: You can now see the details of the new pay band and the position in band change for promoted employees. Additionally, you also have the option of typing in a new job name if you are not able to find the appropriate choice in the list of job names.

Pay philosophy elements

  • Promotions budget allocation: We've added a separate budget for promotions that is created and assigned to each compensation owner's task population. A separate budget panel for promotions is provided and this budget is used only when employees are promoted.

    Note: This feature is in limited availability. If you are interested, please contact your Customer Success Manager (CSM).

  • Promoted employees list upload: When setting up a pay cycle, administrators can now upload a file with employee ID's and (optionally) new job names and career levels for those receiving promotions. This file is automatically checked for format and to ensure it matches with the scope population. Administrators can then proceed to set the promotional increase recommendations.
  • Combine promotion increase with other recommendations: Administrators can now specify other increase recommendations to be combined with promotion increase recommendations. Managers are then presented with two separate recommendations for review that combine to a single new base pay amount. This separation is maintained so managers can communicate the reasoning to employees.
  • Bonus plan selector and calculator: Administrators can now set up multiple bonus plans and choose from a library of bonus plan calculations. Employee participation in bonus plans can be provided through data files or can be set up in the cycle eligibility.

    Note:  

    • This feature is in limited availability. If you are interested, please contact your Customer Success Manager (CSM).
    • Configuration is required for this feature.

Hourly worker support

  • Hourly rate display: You can now view employee hourly rates when viewing employee increase recommendations and making adjustments.

Smart Compensation 1.4

January 9, 2024

What's new

Cycle creation

  • Multiple pay types selector: Administrators can now choose any combination of pay types when creating a cycle.

Workflows

  • Rounding parameter setting: Administrators can now encode their policy for rounding end values so managers can see how the rounding applies to their employees and impacts the budget.

Notifications

  • Task review notification: Approvers will now receive an email notification once a subtask has been submitted for approval.

Pay types

  • Bonus target adjuster: Managers can now make changes to next year's target bonus. Changes will proceed through the approval chain and appear on the pay letter for employees.

    Note: Configuration is required for this feature.

  • Customizable employee rewards: Administrators can now identify additional amounts for a pay type, such as an extra share grant, that will be outside of the budget and recommendations. These additional amounts will proceed through the approval chain and appear on the pay letter for employees.

    Note: Configuration is required for this feature.

  • On-target earnings (OTE) projections: You can now see the on-target earnings projected for employees for next year.

    Note: Configuration is required for this feature.

Smart Compensation 1.3

November 21, 2023

What's new

Pay types

  • Long-term incentives management: Administrators can now add long-term incentives to the pay cycle and see the target amounts for the population as a budget. Adjust the budget to either align with how bonus is determined, or set separate rules for how the budget is calculated. Administrators can also set a nominal share price and choose whether dollars or number of shares will be shown to managers and later to employees on the pay letter. After the budget is set, administrators can use a performance matrix to make recommendations for employees to managers. Managers will be presented with a recommendation and explanation of the calculation and pay philosophy and can make adjustments for each employee with notes to justify their reasoning. We are initially supporting evergreen stock refresh grants where there is a target refresh amount per employee each year that is loaded with the employee data as an amount or percentage of base pay.

Segmentation

  • Segment compensation change letters: We've added the ability to segment pay letters by contract type.

Budgeting

  • Uniform budget setting: Administrators can now choose whether to use a flexible budget or a uniform budget. With a uniform budget, each task that is created will have a budget that is calculated the same as the overall budget that has been set. For example, a 5% overall uniform budget will mean each task will receive a budget of 5% of the base pay of the individuals in the task. When choosing a uniform budget, there will be a difference between what the budget is and what the pay philosophy is recommending. If you have a budget of 5% but are recommending high performers get 8% and a task is filled with all high performers, the recommendations will be immediately over budget. This allows the compensation owner to realize they should re-balance the recommendations for their task.

Workflows

  • Bulk compensation change letter download: Administrators can now download all of the pay letters for a compensation cycle in a single click so they can distribute as needed.
  • Segment bonus periods: Administrators can now specify population segments and configure the bonus period separately for each population. The recommendation calculator takes this into account when recommending the bonus amount for the employee so that employees who have semi-annual bonus periods only receive half of their annual bonus target recommended.

Cycle creation

  • Eligibility management: Administrators can now specify eligibility for each pay type. Administrators can also designate off-cycles for a pay type by keeping employees in the cycle but recommending a zero dollar increase. This means managers don't have a budget, but can still bring forward some employees for base pay, bonus, LTI, or promotional increases.

Smart Compensation 1.2

October 10, 2023

What's new

Workflows

  • Pay philosophy recommendations review: Administrators can now see recommendations based on the pay philosophy for each employee and analyze the impact of a simulated promotion. This ensures that pay philosophy is setup correctly and will be helpful for managers.
  • Data gap alert: After setting the scope of the compensation cycle, administrators will now receive an alert if there is any missing data. Administrators can access a data view and choose to highlight rows where optional data or required data is missing. A link will be provided to contact Visier Technical Support to correct any data issues.
  • Compensation change letter validation: Upon upload, you will now be notified if any of the dynamic variable names in your pay letter template have errors so they can be corrected.

Smart Compensation 1.1

September 13, 2023

What's new

Workflows

  • Multi-currency support: HR operations users can now choose a currency for the pay cycle in the Project Essentials phase. This will be used for comparison and aggregation to determine if the cycle is on or over budget. Managers can now make choices about increases in their employees' local currency and the foreign exchange will be calculated. Exchange rates are set one time for a particular cycle and can be loaded as data, they will be surfaced to HR users as they set up the cycle.
  • Pay conversation support: Smart Compensation prepares managers to have healthier pay conversations that drive desired people outcomes. By exploring historic data about employees from multiple sources in a single interface, managers will come prepared to have a meaningful discussion that will optimize the impact of pay to motivate employees. Smart Compensation takes the bold approach to guide line managers with a simple user interface, crafted to allow them to work through their tasks efficiently and build their competency along the way.
  • Customizable compensation change letters: Administrators can now customize a template to make a custom pay letter that can include letterhead, images, and company language that is important to communicate changes to employees. This includes optional text blocks in the case that changes include base pay, bonus, promotions or some combination. These letters can be customized per employee segment, allowing a differently worded letter to be generated for employees by jurisdiction to comply with local needs.

Smart Compensation 1.0

August 2, 2023

What's new

Initial product release

  • Optimize compensation dollars: The CFO or HR team sets the top-down budget for the annual compensation cycle in line with business objectives and competition in the market. Smart Compensation performs the bottom-up application of the budget for the exact number of employees in scope for each cycle, according to your objectives through the configuration of your organization's pay philosophy. You can align pay to cost-of-living adjustments, align your merit matrix, and estimate how many employees will likely get identified for promotion. This helps you balance your available budget against objectives to arrive at the optimal budget and holdback before managers begin the allocation process.
  • Smart merit recommendations: A recommendation engine provides initial compensation values for employees in line with your pay philosophy, according to your prioritization. Smart merit recommendations are set as compensation presets. You can configure the recommendations for adjustments, such as how much of a raise is given for promotions, as well as the configuration of merit matrices. Person-level recommendations provide an unbiased and fair anchor point for managers to start their allocation. Managers can then adjust away from this recommendation but must justify their adjustments with valid reasons. This provides the ideal mix of reducing manager subjectivity while maintaining manager discretion.
  • Proactively address fairness and equity with checks and balances: Smart Compensation's analysis capability enables you to understand the impact to equity, fairness, and the risk of exit to help ensure the compensation budget is being applied in the most impactful way. This includes a unique hypothesis analysis capability which creates a data model of what the organization looks like, including the proposed changes, in real-time, before the decisions are finalized and sent to the payroll team.

    Note: Smart Compensation does not perform pay equity regression testing typically done through a third party under legal privilege; however, it does help manage fairness and equity to reduce the need for this type of testing.

  • Greater pay consistency to support greater transparency: View the breakdown of factors, such as performance ratings for individual employees, to support a constructive and impactful pay conversation. Smart Compensation provides managers with pay and job change history, which is essential to understanding employee expectations.

Workflows

  • Automate your compensation cycle: Smart Compensation includes progress tracking and multi-level collaboration, so various levels of the organization can review and adjust as the allocations flow up through the supervisory hierarchy. You can also include links to your own materials to educate and support managers on the topic of your organization's pay philosophy and provide additional guidance. Smart Compensation stores an auditable account of merit decisions and approvals. This is a specially-designed solution for managers, helping them understand their options and impact in an easy-to-use, guided experience.

Pay philosophy elements

  • Multi-dimensional merit matrix: A one, two, or three-dimensional merit matrix using performance ratings, position in range or compa ratio, and/or proficiency. If you include proficiency, a manager talent evaluation informs the recommendations.

    Note: This feature requires performance ratings and pay band data.

  • Promotion pay increases: HR Operations can define the typical increase associated with a promotion.

    Note: This feature requires internal placement (promotion events) data to provide analytic guidance to HR on historic promotion rates to help budget, and to managers on who to consider for promotion.

  • Flat pay increases by location: A broad percentage increase applied to a population by location, which is ideal for market considerations such as cost-of-living increases.

    Note: This feature requires location data.