Off-cycle increases: who approves them where you work, and is there a hard cap?

A fixed fund worked against us. Units treated the 0.5% as theirs to spend and by October every one of them was at 98% utilisation. We now hold it centrally and release it case by case.

Whatever you design, add a quarterly report by approver. Ours showed that three leaders accounted for 40% of all off-cycle spend. That one page did more than the policy.

Do you count promotions in the 9%? In my experience half of what gets called off-cycle is really a promotion processed outside the window, and it needs a different rule from a retention adjustment.

Good challenge. Stripping out promotions it is 5.5%, which is still high. I am proposing a centrally held fund of 0.4%, the four reason codes, and the approver report each quarter. Promotions get two fixed dates a year instead.