Create a reward rule

What this achieves

A reward rule says what a performance outcome entitles someone to, such as an enhanced bonus for exceeding objectives. Without any rule, outcomes are shown as information only and carry no reward consequence.

Required role: Administrator.

Before you start

Decide whether you want rules at all. Leaving this screen empty is a supported choice: performance outcomes still appear, but they imply no entitlement.

Steps

Go to Compensation → Reward Rules.
Select Add rule.
Under Basics, enter a Rule name and set Active.

Example: Engineering annual bonus eligibility.
Under Scope, choose the Legal entity, or leave it as Tenant-wide (all entities).
Under Who it applies to, set Grades, Departments, Employment types, and Minimum tenure (months) as needed.
Under How the outcome is measured, choose the Signal.
Under Outcome → tier → reward, set an Eligibility tier for each outcome, then choose the Reward for each tier.
Under Disciplinary interaction, set Honor disciplinary bonus-ineligibility if it should apply.
Select Save rule.

The signal that decides the outcome

Option	Description
Rating only	The performance rating decides the outcome.
Objectives only	The percentage of objectives achieved decides the outcome.
Combined (both)	Both are taken into account.

Leaving the advanced thresholds blank uses defaults: for objectives, exceeded at 90% or above, met at 70% or above, missed at 40% or below. Rating thresholds default to bands derived from the rating scale in use.

Example: an engineer at HC Corp UK Ltd who completed 92% of their objectives lands on Exceeded under the default objective bands.

Outcomes and tiers

Four outcomes each map to a tier.

Option	Description
Exceeded	Performance was above what was asked.
Met	Performance was at the level asked.
Partially met	Some of what was asked was achieved.
Missed	What was asked was not achieved.

Option	Description
Enhanced	The most generous tier.
Standard	The normal entitlement.
Reduced	A lower entitlement.
Not eligible	No entitlement from this rule.

Money is optional

A tier does not have to carry a payment.

Option	Description
Recognition only (no payout)	The tier is recorded, with no money attached.
Fixed amount	A set Amount in a chosen Currency.
Multiplier of base	A Multiplier (× base) applied to base salary.

Example: HC Corp UK Ltd could map Exceeded to Enhanced with a multiplier of base pay, and Met to Standard as recognition only, so the difference between the two is visible without committing to two payments.

Targeting combines

Every filter you set under Who it applies to must be true of an employee for the rule to reach them. Leaving them all empty applies the rule to everyone in scope.

Example: setting Departments to Engineering and a Minimum tenure (months) of 12 reaches only engineers who have been at HC Corp UK Ltd for a year or more.

What a rule does not do

A reward rule expresses eligibility. It does not pay anything, and it does not decide a compensation plan for anyone — an eligibility outcome arrives alongside a proposal as context for the person making the decision, and never blocks or overrides what they propose.

Where the disciplinary option is set, an employee under a bonus ineligibility is not eligible under this rule regardless of how they performed.

What happens next

Once a rule is active, employees it covers see their standing against it, and the outcome appears against their plan when a compensation cycle is running. Deleting a rule reverts the employees it covered to informational outcomes.