Insights Needed: Managing Complex Relationships with Secondary Hierarchy in SAP SuccessFactors Compe

[ALAE1]

Hello everyone,

I’m currently working on the implementation of SAP SuccessFactors Compensation and would like to gather your insights and experiences regarding the management of complex relationships using the secondary hierarchy feature.

In our scenario, we need to account for additional relationships in the compensation process, including:

Distinct final approvers based on employee `groups`.

Specific tracking roles for certain types of employees.

An extended hierarchy chain involving employees and managers across different legal entities.

I’m particularly looking to understand how the secondary hierarchy in Compensation can be configured to:

Manage these complex relationships without disrupting the standard hierarchy.

Enable flexibility in workflows for salary and bonus reviews.

Ensure the system remains performant and maintainable, even with a large user base.

If any of you have faced similar challenges or implemented effective solutions, I would love to hear your thoughts! Any advice on best practices or key points to keep in mind would also be greatly appreciated.

To provide some context, here are the key links for remuneration roles and their descriptions in our setup:

Valideur_Final_Rémunération_Classes_Groupe_A: Final approver for Group A or Class.

Valideur_Final_Rémunération_Groupes_B_C: Final approver for Groups B or C.

Manager_Rémunération_Classes_Groupe_A: Submitter for Group A or Class.

Manager_Rémunération_Groupes_B_C: Submitter for Groups B or C.

RH_Rémunération_Classes_Groupe_A: HR monitor for Group A or Class.

RH_Rémunération_Groupes_B_C: HR monitor for Groups B or C.

Thank you in advance for your insights and advice!

Regards,

[xavierlegarrec · Accepted solution]

Hi @ALAE1 

Here is information about the 2nd Manager hierarchy: 

https://community.sap.com/t5/human-capital-management-blogs-by-members/how-compensation-hierarchies-...

You can use a combination of 2nd Manager Hierarchy and Executive Review access (you can leverage the latest Executive Review based on routemap step feature from 2H 2024)

All the best,

Xavier

[ALAE1 · Accepted solution]

Hello @Xavier, Thank you for your feedback. This is also what I suggested to my client: combining the second hierarchy with the new Route Map functionality. However, the client is asking many questions to ensure feasibility and is requesting detailed technical explanations on how to manage the following links in SuccessFactors: Valideur_Final_Rémunération_Classes_Groupe_A: Final approver for Group A or a class. Valideur_Final_Rémunération_Groupes_B_C: Final approver for Groups B or C. Manager_Rémunération_Classes_Groupe_A: Submitter for Group A or a class. Manager_Rémunération_Groupes_B_C: Submitter for Groups B or C. RH_Rémunération_Classes_Groupe_A: HR monitor for Group A or a class. RH_Rémunération_Groupes_B_C: HR monitor for Groups B or C. It is worth mentioning that some employees involved might not belong to the main company but could be part of a subsidiary. Could you please help me provide a detailed technical explanation of how these roles and links can be managed in SuccessFactors? Thank you in advance for your support.

[xavierlegarrec]

Hi @ALAE1 

There is very little we can't handle and based on what you describe I would say it's doable but you might have to scope high complexity to cover your implementation cost here.... this is definitely not out of the box and would require an experienced Variable Pay consultant.

All the best

Xavier

[xavierlegarrec]

Hi @ALAE1 

As long as there is a value in EC or somewhere (by that I mean outside SuccessFactors) that can help identify who is in each group, you can configure Role Based Permissions > Executive Review accordingly.

We can build dynamic groups or static groups (upload by userId) in Manage Permission Groups in RBP. I'm not sure what else you need except maybe to show the customer some examples of each of these.

All the best

Xavier

[ALAE1]

Hello, I have a question, please: My client wants to ensure that SuccessFactors Compensation can handle management rules specific to each subsidiary. For example: The "eligible" employees for the campaign differ depending on the subsidiaries: permanent contracts (CDI) present as of 31.12 or both permanent (CDI) and fixed-term (CDD) contracts present as of 30.01. Some subsidiaries enter data in percentages, while others use absolute values, etc. Variable budget calculations also vary: in some cases, it’s the sum of the targets multiplied by a percentage, while in other cases, a global amount is injected directly. Not all subsidiaries will have the same columns displayed (e.g., some structures don’t have grades for each employee or variable targets). Each subsidiary has its own notification letter templates (5–6 templates per subsidiary). Can the solution handle this volume? Alert thresholds are specific to each subsidiary (e.g., for LBP, the max variable is 150% of the target; for another subsidiary, it’s 100%). Deferred payment calculation rules are specific to each subsidiary.