Pay Review With No Review Cycle
Nothing in either contract makes anybody look at this person's salary, so a rise happens only when you start it.
Whether the person feels part of your company
Career progression
Your own share scheme
Who notices when it is going wrong
YoursThe provider'sCrosses the twoNeither contract
Four matters, and no share: what any one agreement covers differs by agreement. One crosses both, and the handoff is where these arrangements fail. Three sit in neither contract. The section where the most arrangements are lost, and the one no document addresses.
A review cycle one buyer had to build, because nothing in either contract produced one
Decide, once a year, whether this person's salary should move
What you actually ask for
A decision of yours, on a date you set, using market data you obtain
What you cannot require
That anybody remind you, because nothing in either contract does
Nobody has to agreeTakes: A week, if the data exists; a month if you have to go and find it
Find out what the role actually pays in that country now
What you actually ask for
A question to the provider, and ideally a second source that is not selling you anything
What you cannot require
That the provider's benchmark be independent, since they also price the arrangement
Nobody has to agreeTakes: A fortnight
Put the increase into effect
What you actually ask for
A written request with a figure and an effective date, a contract amendment, and the person's agreement
What you cannot require
That it land on the date you first had in mind
Both have to agreeTakes: Four to six weeks, with a payroll cut-off in the middle
Correct a salary that has fallen behind over three years
What you actually ask for
The same mechanism, applied to a larger number, with the same timeline
What you cannot require
That a single correction undo the fact that nobody looked for three years
Both have to agreeTakes: The same four to six weeks, and a harder internal conversation about the gap
Five steps, and the one that would have prevented the problem does not exist. The last line names no mechanism and the sign will not print it. One buyer's own cycle, built after discovering a salary three years unchanged.
Nothing in either contract makes anybody look at this person's salary. The provider administers whatever figure it is given. Your own review cycle runs on the HR system, which has no record of them.
The handoff described in “Pay Review With No Review Cycle” depends on records that both the operating team and payroll owner can understand. When evaluating explore the software in more detail for stealth computer monitoring software, use project and time data to reconcile work before payroll cut-off, while leaving tax treatment and statutory calculations to the accountable local specialist.
A rise therefore happens only when somebody decides to start one, and the commonest outcome is that nobody does.
When documenting “Pay Review With No Review Cycle”, the UK employment-status guidance can help test assumptions about ownership, worker protection and cross-border responsibility before a process becomes routine.
Why the default is drift
Your annual review is driven by a process with a calendar, a budget and a list of names. This person is not on the list because they are not an employee.
The provider has no view on whether the salary is right. They invoice what they are told to invoice.
How long it takes to notice
Typically until the person asks, which is typically year two or three, by which point the gap against the market is substantial and the conversation is uncomfortable for both sides.
A person who has not asked is not content; they are usually a person who does not know whether asking is allowed in this arrangement.
Building the cycle yourself
Pick a month. Put every person employed this way on a list. Each year, in that month, decide whether the figure should move and start the request.
That is the whole mechanism:
- Pick a month.
- List every person employed this way.
- Get the market figure for each role in each country.
- Decide whether the salary moves, and by how much.
- Send the request, six weeks before you want it to land.
- Record the decision and the reasoning.
It takes an hour a year and it is the single highest-value process in this collection.
Put it in a calendar with a named owner rather than in an intention. The reason this drifts is never that somebody decided not to do it.
Getting market data
Ask the provider what the role pays in that country now. Then get one independent source, because the provider's data comes from a company that also prices your arrangement.
Local recruiters will usually tell you. So will the person, if you ask what they are seeing.
Salary expectations in a market can move quickly, and a figure that was generous at hiring can be ordinary within eighteen months without anything else changing.
Inflation, specifically
In several of the countries these arrangements are used in, inflation has been high enough that a flat salary is a substantial real cut within two years.
Treat holding the figure as a decision rather than as the absence of one, because that is what it is from the person's side.
Mandatory increases
Some countries have statutory minimum rises, sectoral agreements or indexation. The provider should apply these and should tell you.
Ask whether any apply. Discovering an indexation requirement from an invoice is a poor way to learn about it.
Starting the request early
Four to six weeks from decision to payslip, with a payroll cut-off in the middle. A rise agreed in March does not appear in March.
Start a month before you want it to land, and tell the person the timeline when you tell them you have asked.
When they ask first
Treat it exactly as you would from an employee: ask for their reasoning, say what you will do and by when, and come back with an answer rather than letting it fade.
The one difference is that your answer has a six-week tail even when it is yes, which should be said in the same conversation.
Where you cannot move the figure
Budget, band, or a view from your own company that this role is worth what it is worth. All legitimate and all should be said plainly.
What is not legitimate is blaming the structure. The provider is not the reason the salary has not moved; the absence of anybody looking is.
Equal pay and comparison
People compare, across countries and across structures. A defensible basis for differences — market, cost, scope — is worth having before somebody asks.
In some jurisdictions there are also legal dimensions to this, which is a question for the provider or local advice rather than for an internal rule of thumb.
Recording the decision
The figure, the date, the reasoning and the data used. One line a year, per person.
Three years on, that record is what tells you whether this has been managed or merely allowed to continue.
What the cycle will not tell you
Whether the person thinks they are fairly paid. The arithmetic can be defensible and the feeling can still be wrong, particularly for somebody who can see that colleagues doing the same work have a different package constructed differently.
Asking directly is the only route to that, and the answer is more useful than the benchmark. A person who believes they are being thought about is in a different position from one who believes they have been forgotten, and in this arrangement that belief is the thing most easily and most accidentally destroyed.