Decide What Each Role Is Worth, and Be Able to Say Why
Compensation and rewards strategy is the set of decisions a business makes about pay: where it intends to sit against the market, how roles are ranked and grouped into grades, what salary range each grade carries, how much pay is fixed and how much depends on results, and on what basis increments, incentives, promotions and recognition are awarded. We help you take those decisions, then build what follows from them.
Compensation and Rewards Strategy in brief
Compensation and rewards strategy is the set of decisions a business makes about pay: where it intends to sit against the market, how roles are ranked and grouped into grades, what salary range each grade carries, how much pay is fixed and how much depends on results, and on what basis increments, incentives, promotions and recognition are awarded.
- GullyHR is an HR consulting, HR services, training and software company based in Bengaluru, working with Indian startups and small and medium businesses. Compensation work sits under HR management consulting.
- The work covers pay philosophy, job evaluation and grading, salary bands, variable pay and sales incentives, the increment and promotion rules, and recognition.
- You keep the documents and can reuse them: a philosophy note, the job evaluation record, a grade structure, a salary band workbook, the plan documents and a manager briefing pack.
- GullyHR publishes no salary data of its own. Benchmarks come from published surveys, whatever sources exist for your roles and your city, and the offers, counter-offers and exits your own hiring generates.
- Statutory treatment of pay components is flagged for confirmation with qualified professionals. Scope, sequence and the proposal are agreed after a consultation.
The starting point
Can You Explain Your Pay Differences Out Loud?
In most growing businesses every salary was fixed at the offer stage, one conversation at a time. Each decision was defensible on the day. Taken together they produce a pay structure nobody designed and nobody can now explain without embarrassment.
We settle the philosophy first, then build grades, bands and reward rules that follow from it.
You may be experiencing:
- Two people doing the same job paid differently, with the only honest explanation being what each asked for at interview.
- A counter-offer matched to keep one person, which the rest of the team knew about within hours.
- Increments decided alone, late, from last year's sheet and a general sense of who has been putting in the hours.
- A sales incentive re-argued every quarter, usually over whether payout falls on the order, the delivery or the collection.
- A promotion where the designation changed and nobody could say what was supposed to happen to the salary.
- An offer declined, with no way to tell whether the problem was the number, the components or the level.
- A salary bill climbing faster than revenue, with nothing showing which function or level is driving it.
- New joiners hired at today's rate sitting above colleagues who have been with you for years.
- Employees learning each other's pay through a payslip or a casual conversation, with no agreed answer ready when they ask.
- The cost-to-company breakup looking different for people at the same level, for reasons nobody recorded.
- Allowances, benefits and perquisites granted case by case, with no list showing who has what and why.
What we can help with
Our Compensation and Rewards Services
Pay Philosophy
The ground rules on paper before a single number moves: where you intend to sit against the market, how much of pay is fixed and how much depends on results, and how much of the structure is published to employees.
Job Evaluation
Roles scored on what the job carries rather than on who holds it, against factors that fit your business, such as decision-making, span, technical depth and commercial impact, in a facilitated session with the people who manage them.
Grade Structure
Roles with similar scores grouped into grades, each carrying a plain description of what work at that level looks like, with designations mapped afterwards so a title change stops being a pay event.
Salary Bands
A minimum, midpoint and maximum for each grade, with every current employee placed inside or outside them and the cost of correcting the outliers worked out under immediate and staged options.
Variable Pay Design
Who is eligible, what the payout depends on, whether it is measured at company, department or individual level, the timing, the caps and what happens in a partial period, settled before anything is offered.
Sales Incentive Schemes
Target basis, payout slabs, ramp for new joiners, order against collection, and credit on team and channel deals, written so a dispute can be settled by reading the document rather than by negotiating after the quarter.
Increment Framework
A budget approach, a matrix linking performance rating and position in the band to the increase, treatment for people already at the top of a band, an exception route and a published cycle calendar.
Promotion and Recognition
What must be true before a role changes and how pay is treated when it does, kept separate from the increment conversation, alongside award types, nomination and approval routes and what recognition costs.
The scope
What the Consulting Covers
Pay decisions involve the owner, HR, finance and every manager who is asked to explain them. These are the parts of the reward framework we can review or design. The scope is agreed with you and can take all twelve areas or only some.
Current Pay Assessment
How people are paid today by role, grade and tenure, where pay differs without a stated reason, and how salary cost has moved.
Pay Philosophy and Principles
The written position on market positioning, fixed and variable mix, internal parity and how much of the structure is shared with employees.
Job Evaluation and Grades
Roles scored on what they carry, grouped into grades with plain level descriptions, and designations mapped afterwards.
Market Reference Inputs
The published surveys, industry sources and your own hiring evidence used for reference, with the reliability of each stated.
Salary Bands and Correction Costing
A range for each grade, current employees placed against it, and the cost of correcting outliers under immediate and staged options.
Salary Structure and Components
How cost to company is broken into components, in a form your payroll team or provider can process.
Variable Pay and Sales Incentives
Eligibility, measures, payout timing, caps, ramp-up and worked examples for bonus and incentive schemes.
Increment and Revision Framework
The budget approach, rating and band-position matrix, exception route and cycle calendar.
Promotion and Recognition
What must be true before a role changes, how pay is treated when it does, and the award types, nominations and approvals for recognition.
Offers, Counter-Offers and Joining Pay
How the range is used at the offer stage, who may approve above the midpoint, and how internal parity is checked before an offer goes out.
Allowances, Benefits and Perquisites
Which allowances and benefits exist, who is eligible, and the rules for granting or changing them.
Communication and Manager Briefing
What managers say, what employees are told and how pay questions are answered and recorded.
Working together
Ways to Work With Us
Compensation Diagnostic
A short review of how people are paid now, the internal parity picture, the salary cost trend and the state of your incentive schemes, ending in findings and a recommendation.
Compensation Structure Project
The full piece of work: philosophy, job evaluation, grades, bands, costed correction options and the salary structure template.
Incentive and Increment Design
A bounded project for businesses whose structure is broadly settled but whose variable pay is not: sales incentive scheme, bonus plan and increment framework.
Appraisal Cycle Support
We work alongside your team through one increment or appraisal cycle, sit in the moderation and exception discussions, and review what the framework actually did.
Pay data is handled apart from the rest of the engagement. We agree who at your end shares the salary register, who at GullyHR sees it and in what form it is held.
The deliverables
What You Receive
Depending on the scope of your engagement, deliverables can include:
- A written philosophy note stating your market position, the fixed and variable mix, the internal parity rules and how much is published.
- A job evaluation record and grade structure: the factors used, each role's score, the resulting level, and every designation mapped to a grade.
- A salary band workbook holding the range for each grade, current employee placement, the outlier list and the costed correction options.
- A salary structure template showing how cost to company is broken into components, in a form your payroll can process.
- Variable pay and sales incentive documents with eligibility, measures, payout slabs, timing, caps, clawback and worked examples.
- An increment framework covering the budget approach, the rating and band-position matrix, the exception route and the cycle calendar.
- Promotion guidelines and a recognition programme outline, each with criteria and the approval route.
- A manager briefing pack and an employee communication note carrying the questions managers will be asked.
- A current-pay analysis showing employees by role, grade and tenure, with the pay differences that need an explanation.
- An offer and counter-offer guideline stating how the range is used, who approves exceptions and how internal parity is checked.
- An allowances and benefits eligibility summary stating who qualifies, on what basis and who approves changes.
Step by step
How We Work
Take the Data and Read the Picture
Salary data is handed over under agreed confidentiality, then every employee is plotted against role, tenure and last rating. You see where pay differs for no reason you could state aloud.
Settle the Philosophy
A working session with you, and with whoever holds the finance view, to fix the market position you are paying to, the fixed and variable mix, and how much of the structure employees will be told.
Evaluate Roles and Build Grades
Roles are scored against the agreed factors with the people who manage them, then grouped into grades with a level description each. Designations are mapped afterwards, deliberately in that order.
Build Bands and Cost the Correction
Market references available for your roles, industry and city are assembled with their reliability marked. Ranges are built, employees placed, and the outlier correction costed under immediate and staged options.
Back-Test, Sign Off and Run a Cycle
Incentive, increment, promotion and recognition plans are drafted then run against last year's real cases to see what they would have paid. After sign-off we brief managers and stay through the first live cycle. Where it is included in the engagement, we run the framework through one function or review cycle as a pilot first and refine it from what the managers report.
The difference
What a Pay Structure Gives You
A settled reward framework helps you:
We do not promise outcomes. We record a baseline before work starts, covering the current pay picture by role, grade and tenure, and the salary cost trend, and report against it, so you can see what changed and what did not.
- Explain why two people are paid differently, with the same explanation every time you are asked.
- Turn increment season into a decision about budget and rating rather than a fortnight of private negotiations.
- Make an offer against a range, so hiring at today's rate stops unsettling the people already on the team.
- Hold one leadership view of what each level of work is worth to the business.
- Settle incentive payouts from the scheme document instead of at the end of the quarter.
- Recognise people for reasons everyone can see, so pay is not the only way you show appreciation.
- See where pay differs for no stated reason before a resignation or a complaint shows it.
- Check an offer against a range and the internal parity picture before it is issued.
- See what a pay decision costs, under immediate and staged options, before committing to it.
- Brief managers so that employees hear the same explanation of how pay works.
Find your fit
Who This Service Is For
Businesses Where Pay Was Negotiated
Companies where every salary was fixed at the offer stage and the differences can no longer be explained by role, grade or performance.
Companies Hiring Quickly
Businesses where funding, a large order or a new location has pushed hiring, and offers are going out with no range behind them.
Owners Deciding Every Increment
Founders who still handle every increment and counter-offer personally, and want a basis managers can apply.
Sales-Led Businesses
Companies where the incentive scheme is renegotiated each quarter and payouts are argued about after the money is banked.
Companies With Competent HR but No Policy
Businesses whose HR team runs payroll and appraisals well, with nothing written behind the pay decisions those cycles produce.
Businesses Facing Diligence
Companies heading into an investor conversation or audit where salary cost and structure will be opened up.
Finance Leaders
People who want salary cost explained by function, level and component before approving budgets.
Multi-Location or Multi-Entity Businesses
Companies where the same role is paid differently across sites or entities and the reasons are not on record.
Managers Who Explain Pay
Department heads who are asked to justify pay differences and want a common basis for the conversation.
Good to know
A Clear Pay Decision Cycle
Setting the framework
- Define: settle the pay philosophy, market position and fixed and variable mix.
- Evaluate: score roles and place them in grades.
- Build: set bands, salary structure, incentive and increment rules.
Running a review cycle
- Budget: agree the increment and incentive budget against salary cost.
- Review: apply the matrix, moderate exceptions and record the reasons.
- Communicate: brief managers, inform employees and file the decisions.
Each stage has an owner, a date and a record of what was decided.
Good to know
Track Pay Framework Health
Structure and parity
- Employees outside band: how many sit above or below their range, and by how much.
- Position within band: where employees sit between the minimum and maximum of their range.
- Internal parity gaps: where similar roles carry different pay without a recorded reason.
Cost and decisions
- Salary cost by function and grade: which areas drive the movement.
- Offers outside range: how often and why exceptions are approved.
- Increment spread by rating: whether differences follow the agreed matrix.
- Incentive disputes: how often a scheme is re-argued after the period closes.
Measures use agreed definitions and are reported by role and grade rather than by named individual where possible.
Good to know
Scope and Service Boundaries
Your engagement defines
The roles, entities, locations, reward plans and review cycles included, and whether we support a live cycle.
Requires a separate agreement
- Payroll calculation and processing.
- Statutory filings and remittances.
- Tax, legal and labour-law advice.
- Purchase of salary survey subscriptions or custom surveys.
- Individual salary negotiations.
- Ongoing administration of increment and incentive cycles.
- Equity or share-based incentive plan design.
Pay decisions remain with authorised management. Salary structures, incentive terms and any change to existing employees' pay terms should receive appropriate specialist review before they are communicated.
Good to know
Timeline and How to Prepare
Timeline
The schedule depends on the number of roles, entities and locations, the quality of existing salary data and which plans are in scope. We confirm it after agreeing the scope.
Useful inputs
- Salary register with role, grade, joining date and last rating; identifiers can be masked.
- Current salary structures and component definitions.
- Increment and promotion history from recent cycles.
- Existing incentive and bonus scheme documents.
- Recent offers, counter-offers and declined offers.
- Job descriptions or role lists, where available.
- Organisation chart and headcount by function.
Where roles or schemes are not documented, we can begin with discussions with the managers who run them.
Good to know
Confidentiality and Salary Information
Handled by agreement
Pay data is among the most sensitive information a business holds. Before work begins we agree who shares the salary register, who at GullyHR sees it, the form in which it is held, the confidentiality terms and retention arrangements.
Pay data in the design
Analysis is presented by role and grade rather than by named individual where possible. The framework also defines who may see bands, ranges and individual pay.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
It is the set of decisions a business makes about pay: where it sits against the market, how roles are ranked into grades, what range each grade carries, how much pay is fixed against variable, and on what basis increments, incentives, promotions and recognition are awarded.
It may, and the point is that you see the number before deciding. The band work produces a list of people outside the range and what correcting each would cost, under immediate and staged options. Whether to correct, and how fast, is your decision.
That is a common and workable position. Correction can be staged over cycles, applied only to the most serious cases, or absorbed into the normal increment. What matters is that the gap is known and the sequence is chosen rather than discovered later through a resignation.
Pay data is handled separately from the rest of the engagement. We agree who at your end shares it, who at GullyHR sees it, and in what form it is held. Analysis is presented by role and grade rather than by named individual wherever possible.
That is a philosophy decision and both positions work. Publishing bands builds trust and reduces negotiation, but it also commits you to defending the structure. We set out what each choice obliges you to do, and you decide how much is published.
Yes. That is a bounded engagement for businesses whose grades and bands are broadly settled. The scheme is drafted and then back-tested against your own last-year numbers, so you can see what it would have paid before anybody is told about it.
Not necessarily complete ones. Evaluation needs a reliable account of what each role carries, which the evaluation session itself produces. Where descriptions exist they speed it up, and where role boundaries are genuinely disputed, role design usually comes first.
The structure template shows how cost to company is broken into components in a form your payroll can process. We do not state a position on statutory obligations, so please confirm those with a qualified professional.
After the diagnostic. The scope states which roles and entities are covered, which plans are being designed, and whether we support a live cycle. It is agreed in writing before the salary data is handed over.
Usually when pay differences can no longer be explained. Common triggers are a counter-offer that unsettled a team, increments decided one case at a time, an incentive scheme argued over every quarter or a salary bill rising faster than revenue.
No. GullyHR publishes no salary figures. Benchmarking uses published surveys and industry sources available for your roles and city, together with your own offers and hiring experience, and we state the limits of each source.
A grade groups roles of similar weight, and a pay band is the salary range attached to it, usually with a minimum, midpoint and maximum. Together they give managers a range to work within instead of negotiating each salary from scratch.
We keep it proportionate: a few grades, a range for each and a standard breakup of components, with current employees placed against them. The structure is sized to your headcount rather than copied from a large organisation.
With a stated rule rather than a case-by-case reaction: who may approve one, how far it can go relative to the range and how internal parity is checked. We set out the options and you decide.
Write down eligibility, the measure, timing, caps and treatment of a partial period before anything is offered. Then test the plan against last year's real cases so you can see what it would have paid.
Yes. Your HR manager runs the analysis with us and owns the framework afterwards, so the next new role can be evaluated without calling us back. The framework is documented to sit in whatever HR or payroll system you already use.
Pricing depends on the number of roles, entities and locations, which reward plans are in scope and whether you want support through a live cycle. Share your requirements and we will send a tailored proposal.
Pay on a Basis You Can State in One Sentence
Settle where you sit against the market, rank roles on what they carry, build bands around them, and write down how increments, incentives and promotions are decided.
Prefer to talk first? Call +91 80958 58589 or write to hello@gullyhr.com.
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Tell us how pay is decided in your business today.
