Providing a rationale

Explain the proposals that need explaining, so your can be submitted. You need a worksheet that’s In progress or Returned.

When you need one

What a proposal owes depends on what your compensation team set for each — see Setting guardrails for managers. For the merit increase and for a bonus, a number outside the of its guardrail needs one of:

a and a ;
a reason code only;
a rationale only; or
nothing — the row is flagged, and that’s all.

In a cycle that plans ranges, the merit soft range is the employee’s guidance range, so a merit increase inside that range owes nothing.

The rationale is the note your compensation team asked for. A bonus keeps its own pair, Bonus reason code and Bonus rationale, apart from the merit increase’s: a reason given for a merit increase never covers a bonus.

A promotion is different: it always needs both a reason code and a rationale, whether or not it’s inside its range, and whatever the merit guardrail asks for. A promotion outside its soft range needs nothing more than that pair. Anything that makes it a promotion counts: a promotion increase, a new grade, or a new title that differs from the current one. See Submitting a promotion.

A proposal outside the can’t be explained into submission: change its number instead. See Reading the guidance and guardrails.

Give the reason code and the rationale

Select the row, or its Justification needed status, to open the person’s details under it.
Under Justification, on the left, choose a Reason code and write the Rationale: why this proposal, in your own words. The list of reason codes is your cycle’s own. A field that’s needed is marked required, and the reason code reads Required for this proposal; a field that isn’t reads Optional.
For a bonus, give the Bonus reason code and Bonus rationale under Bonus, on the right.

Each saves when you leave the field. Once everything asked for is there, the row stops reading Justification needed. When both are asked for, a reason code on its own isn’t enough, and neither is a rationale on its own.

While either is missing

The row’s Status reads Justification needed. Hover it, or tab to it, to see what’s missing. The row is counted in the summary strip’s need a justification chip.

You can still select Submit, which opens Review before you submit. It lists each person whose proposal still owes something, and what it owes — for example a reason code and rationale needed, or a bonus rationale needed. A proposal outside its soft range that owes nothing isn’t listed. If you select Submit for approval anyway, submission is refused: the review shows The server refused this submission, names each proposal and what it’s still missing, and the worksheet stays with you, unchanged.

Who reads it

Your approvers see the reason code and the rationale beside the proposal when they review your worksheet.