Use case

Compensation and total rewards planning.

From the field, AI native workflow redesign of compensation planning process within Total Rewards HR function.

Get the playbook
Convolving expertise

A senior Convolving delivery team partnered with the total rewards function for one sprint. Operators from our expert network – with forty combined years inside enterprise compensation, benefits, and pay-equity audit – reviewed the redesign at each checkpoint. Forward-deployed engineers built inside the team's HRIS, comp tooling, and benchmarking stack. One flat fee, artifact out, no retainer creep.

Situation

Today the annual comp cycle runs eight to twelve weeks. Total rewards stitches benchmark data, performance ratings, and budget envelopes for thousands of employees by hand.

Pay band data ages in spreadsheets. Manager proposals arrive in inconsistent templates. Pay-equity audits land after the cycle closes, when adjustments are politically expensive. Pave's benchmark library covers eight thousand seven hundred companies; HRSoft and beqom ship agentic comp; the legacy stack still runs on spreadsheets and email approvals.

Cycle time 8–12 wks Annual comp planning
Manager touches Many Iterations on proposal templates
Equity audit lag Post-cycle Findings after letters go out
Band freshness Stale Refreshed annually, not live

Click any node to see the activities and tools behind it. Open the canvas in fullscreen for the horizontal view.

Complication

Largest obstacles and inefficiencies.

Eight to twelve weeks of compensation cycle.

Total rewards spends a quarter coordinating spreadsheets and approvals while managers wait on bands and budgets.

Pay-equity audit arrives too late.

Findings land after the letters go out. Adjustments become political rather than systematic.

Benchmark data ages in the workbook.

Bands refresh annually. Mid-cycle hires get offers against last year's market when the market has moved.

Resolution

The AI-native cycle.

Same five steps. Click any node to see what the redesign does in that step.

Cycle time 2–4 wks ▼ ~70% vs today
Manager touches 1–2 Single-pass with guardrails
Equity audit lag Continuous From post-cycle to live
Band freshness Live Refresh as benchmarks update
Key changes

What the redesign actually shifts.

Cycle compression

  • Eight to twelve weeks toward two to four.
  • Manager touches drop to one or two from five or six.
  • Skip-level reviews read live data, not aged spreadsheets.

Equity discipline

  • Pay-equity audit runs continuously across the cycle.
  • Remediation lands inside the cycle, not after.
  • Findings become systematic, not political.

Band freshness

  • Bands refresh as benchmark data updates.
  • Mid-cycle hires get offers against the live market.
  • Manager proposals open with the right number, not an aged one.

Audit and control

  • Every band change logs source and timestamp.
  • Every proposal cites the band and the equity check.
  • Compensation committee reads the same trail as audit.

Deploy this in your team.

The redesign above ships as a step-by-step playbook. Band-library spec, guided proposal template, continuous equity audit pack, letter generation pipeline, and the rollout cadence we use on engagements.