{
  "registry_version": "1.0.0",
  "data": {
    "title": "Compensation & Levelling Reconciliation",
    "status": "active",
    "evidence_ids": [
      "evidence.too_good_to_hire_capability_and_inferences_about_commitment_in_labor_markets",
      "evidence.salary_transparency_growth_slows_but_momentum_continues_indeed_hiring_lab"
    ],
    "content": "# Compensation & Levelling Reconciliation\n\nInternal alignment between candidate expected compensation/level and company pay bands / levelling grid.\n\n### Pass Condition\nCandidate expectations fit within approved salary band and equity guidelines for the target grade.",
    "aliases": [
      "B-009"
    ],
    "id": "bar.compensation_levelling_reconciliation",
    "type": "barrier",
    "stage": "compensation",
    "order": 11,
    "precedes": [
      "bar.headcount_executive_budget_approval"
    ],
    "description": "Internal alignment between candidate expected compensation/level and company pay bands / levelling grid.",
    "pass_condition": "Candidate expectations fit within approved salary band and equity guidelines for the target grade.",
    "evidence_level": "proven",
    "specimens": [
      {
        "kind": "note",
        "label": "Levelling reconciliation sheet",
        "lines": [
          {
            "text": "Candidate expectation: 90k · Approved band for L4: 68–79k · Approved band for L5: 84–98k",
            "tell": false
          },
          {
            "text": "Panel levelled the candidate at L4.",
            "tell": true
          },
          {
            "text": "Gap: 11k above the top of the approved band. Options: level up (needs VP approval), reduce expectation, or close.",
            "tell": false
          }
        ],
        "reading": "Two independent decisions — a level and a band — meet here for the first time. Neither was visible to the candidate while they were being made."
      }
    ],
    "perspectives": [
      {
        "actor": "actor.candidate",
        "sees": "A number stated at the screen, and later a message that it does not fit. The level it was compared against is named afterwards, if at all.",
        "reads": "It reads as a negotiation over the number they named, rather than as the meeting of two decisions taken separately.",
        "does": "Can restate the number or withdraw. Whether restating it changes anything turns on which of the two produced the gap — the level or the band — and that is not in the message."
      },
      {
        "actor": "actor.hiring_manager",
        "sees": "The level the panel assessed at, and the band that level carries. Their input to this gate closed when the level was set.",
        "reads": "The gap reads as a levelling question: the same candidate one level up sits inside a band, and moving the level needs a signature above them.",
        "does": "Requests the level up, or holds the level and lets the process close. The unfilled seat on the team stays with them either way."
      },
      {
        "actor": "actor.employer_policy",
        "sees": "A request to place a candidate outside an approved band, with the level and the number attached. The rounds behind that number are not in the request.",
        "reads": "An exception at one level reads against everyone already placed inside that band.",
        "does": "Approves the exception or holds the grid. The grid is what makes each existing placement defensible, and it is revised on a quarterly cycle rather than per candidate."
      },
      {
        "actor": "actor.public_policy_and_industry_standards",
        "sees": "The posting, and whether the band is in it. What happens between a level and a band inside a company is not filed anywhere.",
        "reads": "A published band reads as the disclosure the rule required.",
        "does": "The rule reaches the band and stops. The level a candidate is assessed at is not a disclosable field, so the half of this gate that moves sits outside what the rule reaches."
      }
    ]
  }
}