Elif Alvarez· Director, Total Rewards, Kestrel Aerospace
Asked in Job Architecture & Careers ·
Software company, US and India, about 1,600 employees. Our titles are tied to grades, so a 'Senior' or 'Lead' in the title means a specific grade. Over the past 18 months the share of the engineering population at grade 6 and above has gone from 31% to 44%, with no matching change in the work as far as I can see.
Nearly all of it came through off-cycle requests framed as retention: a competitor has offered the title, the manager asks for a regrade to match, the business leader approves. Each case is defensible. The total is not.
Short of removing off-cycle regrades entirely, what has worked? I need something a VP of Engineering will accept.
1 agree · 6 replies · 25 views · 6 following
Accepted answer· by Julia Ibrahim
Combining the two previous points is what held for us, at a company of about 2,200. Regrades only in the two windows, through the panel, no exceptions. Outside the windows, managers have two things they can offer: a market adjustment inside the range, and a working title from an approved list of nine that carries no grade. The list was agreed with the VP of Engineering, which is why he defends it. We also set a grade-mix guideline per function, reviewed annually. The share at grade 6 and above came back from 41% to 36% over two cycles, through hiring mix rather than any downgrade.
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Benefits Analyst, Silverline Media
Publish the distribution. We started showing each function head their grade mix against the plan every quarter, with the cost of the drift in dollars. Nobody was told to stop. Off-cycle regrades fell by about 60% in two quarters because leaders did not want to be the outlier in front of their peers.
Compensation Manager, Pinehurst Foods
We separated the retention tool from the grade. If someone has a competing offer, the manager can request a retention payment or a market adjustment within the range, but a regrade only happens in the two promotion windows and goes through the same panel as everyone else. Off-cycle regrades are simply not a form that exists.
VP, Total Rewards, Meridian Health Systems
Removing the form sounds tidy, but in India the title is often the whole offer. A within-range adjustment does not answer 'they are calling me Lead'. We lost good people that way in Bengaluru before we allowed a small set of working titles that do not change the grade.
Julia IbrahimCSI, CEP
Compensation Consultant, Steinbach Industrie
Accepted answer
Combining the two previous points is what held for us, at a company of about 2,200. Regrades only in the two windows, through the panel, no exceptions. Outside the windows, managers have two things they can offer: a market adjustment inside the range, and a working title from an approved list of nine that carries no grade. The list was agreed with the VP of Engineering, which is why he defends it.
We also set a grade-mix guideline per function, reviewed annually. The share at grade 6 and above came back from 41% to 36% over two cycles, through hiring mix rather than any downgrade.
Lena PereiraCRP
Sales Compensation Manager, Meridian Health Systems
A caution on working titles: watch that the approved list does not become a shadow ladder. Ours grew from 9 to 23 in two years. We now review it annually and retire any title with fewer than five holders.
Samir DelaneyCBS, CEP
Senior Compensation Analyst, Silverline Media
This gives me something to take to the VP. Going with windows-only regrades, a short approved list of working titles, and a quarterly distribution report to function heads. I will build the annual review of the title list in from the start.
