One Pay Band per Job Title
Regardless of which Pay Band structure your account is configured for (Pay Band per Job Title or Pay Band per Job Function) Barley supports only one Pay Band per Job Title per Pay Zone. That is to say, if you have 2 employees that have the job title e.g."Software Engineer" and are in the same Pay Zone e.g. “Europe”, they must correspond to the same Pay Band. This is because there must be a unique identifier that allows Barley to associate which employee has which Pay Band and in job architecture, that is the Pay Band.
The Solution – Creating Unique Job Titles
If you have multiple employees with the same Job Title, but have a rationale or structure as to why one employee would be assigned one Pay Band versus the other, we highly recommend you adjust your Job Titles to reflect this levelling. This would mean modifying your Job Titles to include one of the following options:
Seniority e.g. “Senior Software Engineer”
Suffix e.g. “Software Engineer III”
Specialization e.g. 'Software Engineer, Platform'
Not only will this allow you to easily associate the right Pay band with the right employee using their Job Title, but your pay philosophy will be easily communicable and understood by managers and employees alike.
An Alternative – Creating “Internal” Job Titles
In scenarios modifying the Employee-Facing Job Title structure is not yet possible in your organization for whatever reason, there is an alternate option. Barley provides a solution by allowing you to map your internal leveling framework to a custom "Internal Job Title" — imported directly from your HRIS.
Solution Overview
To manage this properly, you’ll need to create a separate custom table in your HRIS that maps your Employee-Facing Job Titles to Internal Job Titles. Barley will use the Internal Job Title for all compensation management and leveling purposes, while keeping your external titles unchanged.
HRIS Requirements for Barley Import
You must create a Custom Internal Job Title table in your HRIS, containing:
Field | Data Type | Description |
Effective Date | Date | Allows Barley to determine which internal job title applies over time. Must match the effective dates of historical job and compensation changes. |
Internal Job Title | Text | The internal (leveled) job title to be used instead of the external job title for compensation planning in Barley. |
⚠️ Important: There must be an entry for every relevant Effective Date that matches your employees’ historical job changes (job title or compensation changes).This ensures that Barley can correctly map employee data across time.
Example Setup — BambooHR
Compensation (Standard Table)
Effective Date | Pay Rate |
03/25/2024 | $56,650.00 USD / Year |
Job Information (Standard Table)
Effective Date | Job Title |
03/25/2024 | Software Engineer |
Custom Internal Job Title (Custom Table — Created by Customer)
Effective Date | Internal Job Title |
03/25/2024 | Software Engineer I |
In this example, although the employee’s external job title remains "Software Engineer," Barley will recognize and import "Software Engineer I" for compensation management.
Additional Notes
Version Control: Ensure your HRIS custom table is updated anytime an employee’s level, role, or band changes.
Naming Conventions: Keep Internal Job Titles clear and standardized (e.g., "Software Engineer I," "Software Engineer II," "Senior Software Engineer").
Coordination: Collaborate with your HRIS administrator or People Ops team to implement the custom table setup.
Communicating with Employees
When using Internal Job Titles, it is most likely that you will want to revert back to the Employee-Facing Job Titles when communicating with employees. Within Barley the applicable areas are Comp Letters as well as Total Rewards (Total Rewards Package). In these scenarios, Barley will use the Employee-Facing Job Titles.
⚠️ Note: That your people team and managers will have to think in "Internal Job Titles" when reviewing and recommending compensation, but communicate in "Employee-Facing Job Titles" when discussing pay with employees
Need Help?
Our Customer Success team can assist you in setting up your custom Internal Job Title table and ensuring the integration into Barley is smooth. Please contact us at support@barley.io or reach out to your assigned CSM.