What you need to know
Sandia’s annual compensation review takes place after year-end performance management reviews.
Managers review base salary and variable pay based on your 9-Block rating, and then make compensation recommendations for your merit increase and variable pay award for the year.
Recommendations and final increases and awards must fit within the annual salary budget guidelines from the Department of Energy (DOE).
2021 Compensation Review Cycle
Managers will have write access to the Comp Tool for the 2021 Compensation Review Cycle. The Comp Tool will continue to pre-load the merit and variable pay recommendations as it did last year. Process specific guidance and principles for the 2021 Compensation Review Cycle were provided during the manager training sessions in October.
A recorded session of the manager trainings as well as a copy of the presentation used during the trainings are available below. You will need access to Sandia’s internal systems to review this content.
Key Dates
Below are the key dates for 2021.
Date | Activity |
Sept. 1 | Freeze date for performance and compensation. New employees hired on or after this date are not included in the FY21 performance and compensation cycle. |
Nov. 8 – Dec. 1 (estimated) | Comp Tool open: managers enter merit increases and variable pay awards. |
Dec. 1 | Last day for managers to enter merit increases and variable pay awards in the Comp Tool. |
Dec. 31 | Effective date for merit increases. |
Jan. 7, 2022 | Merit compensation notices and High Performance Incentive Plan variable pay compensation notices available to managers. |
Jan. 7 – Jan. 14, 2022 |
Manager/employee merit and High Performance Incentive Plan variable pay compensation discussion. |
Jan. 17, 2022 | Compensation notices released to employees. |
Jan. 20, 2022 | Payout date for employee merit increases and High Performance Incentive Plan variable pay awards. To receive the payment, employees must be active, on-roll, and in an eligible, non-represented position on the last day of the pay period, Jan. 13. |
Jan. 31, 2022 | Management Incentive Plan compensation notices available to managers. |
Feb. 14, 2022 | Management Incentive Plan compensation notices automatically released to eligible managers. |
Feb. 17, 2022 | Payout date for Management Incentive Plan variable pay awards. To receive the payment, employees must be active, on-roll, and in an eligible, non-represented position on the last day of the pay period, Feb. 10. |
See Non-Represented Performance Management for key dates related to that process.
Resources
You will need access to Sandia’s internal web in order to view these resources. Manager resources are locked down to specific metagroups.
2021 Compensation Review cycle resources and merit matrix coming soon.t matrices
merit matrix, merit matricies

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Quick Tip
Managers take note!
Go to manager resources for the tools you need to make your annual compensation recommendations, and complete the process through Sandia’s CompTool.