What you can put to work
From the next conversation to a working document.
Build a usable band table
Map six levels to overlapping bands, then decide how market data, geography and equity fit your policy.
Explain the number
Use four zones within each band to make raises and exceptions understandable.
Check cost and approvals
Compare annualized and remaining-period base-pay costs with budget limits, review equity findings and record sign-off.
Editable templates included
Band table, compensation records, equity checks, budget planning and approvals, plus market references, salary history, market decisions and a worked budget example.
Where to start
Agree the policy and budget assumptions with People and Finance teams. Review the dated geographic references, approve your own base-pay inputs and inspect the bands and work through the budget example before entering live proposals.
Across the three workbooks
Run the cycle with People and Finance teams.
Functional leaders
Define strong work, bring the evidence and own the development commitments.
People
Make standards consistent, connect values to behavior and give disputed evidence a clear review route.
Finance
Agree the limits, compare proposed and approved costs, and reconcile the decision before release.
One case, from assessment to action
Follow a fictional team through calibration, a pay proposal that exceeds the period budget, an approved timing change and a development plan with protected time.
Keep the assessment honest
A funding constraint produces a documented pay decision and effective date. It does not rewrite the evidence about someone’s work.
Written by Renato Valdés-Olmos
Built from running the cycle.
I have run leveling, compensation and development cycles at companies of 25, 250 and 2500 people. These workbooks turn those mechanics into documents you can use with your team. The shared six-level framework is new in v1.
More about my work
One complete chapter · No email required
Read section two.
02Bands: how many, how wide, how much they overlap
One band per level. Six levels, six bands, in every lane. The temptation is to add sub-bands, steps, or half-levels so that a raise can be given without a promotion; resist it, because every sub-band is a level the leveling document does not know about, and it will be used as one within a year.
Width
The widths below are a starting table, inside the conventional range, and not a finding; set them once, from your own market cut, and hold them. A band's width is the ratio of its top to its bottom. Too narrow and there is no room to reward a person who is holding the level well without promoting them. Too wide and two people at the same level can be paid so differently that the band means nothing.
| Level | Width (top ÷ bottom) | Why that width |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1.25 | People move through it fast; a wide band here is unspent. |
| 2 | 1.30 | The first level people hold for a while. Room for two or three real raises. |
| 3 | 1.35 | The widest population. Needs the most room to differentiate without promoting. |
| 4 | 1.40 | Long tenures at this level are normal and should not be punished. |
| 5 | 1.45 | Few people, large variance in scope. The band has to hold both a platform principal and a product principal. |
| 6 | 1.50 | Individually negotiated in practice; the band is a boundary, not a target. |
Overlap
Adjacent bands overlap. The top of level 3 is above the bottom of level 4, by design. This is what allows a promotion to happen without a large raise when somebody is already at the top of their band, and it is what allows a strong person at level 3 to out-earn a new arrival at level 4 without anybody being wrong.
| Overlap | Meaning |
|---|---|
| None | Every promotion is a large raise, so promotions are argued for the money. Avoid. |
| 10 to 20 percent | The working range. A promotion from the top of one band lands in the lower-middle of the next. |
| More than 30 percent | Review whether the overlap fits the intended differentiation and local market. The percentage alone does not establish that a level is wrong. |
Six bands, drawn
Each bar is a band, bottom to top, on one pay axis. Widths grow with level; each bar starts inside the one below it, which is the overlap. A promotion from the top of one band lands in the lower-middle of the next, and a strong level 3 can sit above a new level 4 without either being wrong.
The first year, for a company with no bands
Most companies adopting this have a spreadsheet of numbers, each of which made sense on the day it was agreed, and no bands. The first year is not a repricing. Publish the bands. Hold every existing number where it is. Let the zones absorb the corrections: a person above their band is held, not cut, and drifts back to the top of it over two cycles as the band moves and they do not; a person below their band is moved to the entering zone at the first comp cycle, and that is the one set of raises the first year has to fund. Nobody's number goes down because a table appeared. Say that sentence out loud before the table is published, because it is the sentence everyone is waiting for.
Setting the midpoints
Use the level-3 midpoint as an anchor and inspect the steps above and below it. Start with a 20 to 30 percent step in the spreadsheet to see how midpoint progression and width interact. People and Finance should then compare the bands with dated role and market evidence, choose the market rate and overlap target, and record any changes to steps, widths or differentials.
Replace the example inputs before use
The workbook uses sample widths, midpoint steps, overlap ranges, lane differentials and geographic multipliers to show how the model behaves. Before setting pay, People and Finance should enter dated evidence for the relevant roles and locations, record the chosen market position and approve the assumptions. Treat an unusual overlap as a prompt to inspect the level structure.
Try it
Build and pressure-test six pay bands.
Start with a worked market scenario or enter your own approved midpoint. The model draws all six bands, calculates adjacent overlap and flags where the structure needs a policy decision.
Start with the midpoint and policy assumptions approved by People and Finance. This chart shows how the resulting bands interact.
Choose what you need
Start with a workbook, or use the whole set.
Leveling
For EPD leaders extending one credible standard across Engineering, Product, Research, Design and Marketing, with People as the partner who makes it fair and durable.
Compensation
For CFOs and Finance teams setting pay for Engineering, Product, Research, Design and Marketing, with EPD leaders supplying the role and market evidence behind every decision.
Development
For Engineering, Product, Research, Design and Marketing leaders and People teams to run together: turn review evidence into funded growth work, protected time and explicit manager commitments.
The new standard
Leveling, compensation and development in the age of AI.
A shared standard for levels, pay and growth. All three workbooks, their printable documents, 24 editable templates and reference sheets, plus three worked examples. Save $18 compared with buying separately.
$117$99
Team license
All three workbooks and their templates for one leadership team or function at one company. Already bought a single copy? Its price is credited toward the team license. License details.
Enterprise license
Company-wide, multi-division or portfolio-company use, with the licensed entities and rollout scope agreed before purchase. Suitable when procurement, legal, security or implementation support needs to be part of the work. License details.
From $2,500
Contact about enterpriseBefore you buy
A few practical questions.
What do I receive?
The workbook unlocks on this site. You also get a printable pdf and editable .xlsx templates. The set includes all three workbooks and their templates. These are digital downloads; no physical book is shipped.
Do I need the other workbooks?
This workbook applies the six-level standard defined in Leveling. Start with Leveling, or get the set, if your team has not adopted that standard.
Will this work with our HRIS and AI tools?
Yes. The spreadsheets are designed for field mapping, and every online workspace can export versioned JSON. Put only the approved record into your HR system, keyed by a stable employee ID; keep private notes and draft reasoning outside it. An approved AI client or MCP connection can read the exported file, check completeness and prepare drafts through your own file or drive connector. The site does not expose a hosted MCP endpoint or receive employee records, and an AI tool should never approve a level, pay decision or development commitment.
Why not use the framework built into our HR package?
Use it when it fits. An HR package is good at forms, permissions, workflow and storage. These workbooks help your leadership team decide what the fields mean, which evidence counts, who owns the judgment and how exceptions work. Treat the workbook as an acceptance test for the package; if the package preserves the standard and the three separate decisions, configure it there instead of rebuilding the forms.
Does Compensation include salary guidance by geography?
Yes. The September 2026 reference includes 71 public salary and total-compensation ranges across 33 selected geographies, with dedicated coverage for Asia, Africa and Latin America as well as the Bay Area, New York, the US and Europe. Coverage varies by role. It also explains how to handle frontier-AI offers that break an existing band. Every range carries a source and date. Total compensation, advertised salaries and wages are kept separate; matched base-pay inputs still need approval before budgeting.
What does the budget model cover?
Base-pay increases for existing employees in one currency, plus an explicit employer on-cost rate. Compare annualized and remaining-period costs with separate limits. Bonus, benefit changes, hiring, departures, foreign exchange and equity need separate costing. The workbook explains how to record the scope and approvals.
How do I get access?
After checkout, an email goes to the address you paid with. Its private reader link opens the complete workbook. You can also open the reader from this page and enter the access key from the email. The sample remains a separate public chapter.
Can I use it with my team?
A single purchase covers one person, with sharing permitted with your own manager and managers who report to you while running a cycle. The $499 team license covers one leadership team or function at one company. Company-wide, multi-division or portfolio-company use needs an enterprise license. A single purchase can be credited toward the team license. Read the license.
What if we need an enterprise rollout?
Enterprise licenses start at $2,500 for company-wide, multi-division or portfolio-company use, procurement requirements and an agreed rollout scope. Contact me with the organizations, approximate audience, countries and timing for a quote.
Can I get a refund?
Read the complete sample chapter before buying. Because the workbook, PDF and editable files are delivered immediately, checkout asks you to acknowledge that the purchase becomes final when digital access begins. Duplicate charges, persistent access failures, material differences from the description and mandatory legal remedies remain covered. Read the access and refund terms.
Are updates included?
Every revision of v1 is included and sent to the address you paid with. Your purchase does not subscribe you to the essay newsletter.
Can I get a company invoice?
Stripe sends a receipt after purchase. Reply to it with your company name and tax number if you need a company invoice. Any applicable tax is shown at checkout.
Make pay decisions you can explain.
Finance owns the envelope and release controls; Engineering, Product, Research, Design and Marketing leaders own the role and scarce-capability evidence. Together they can make EPD pay decisions the company can afford and explain.
One payment · Immediate digital access · v1 updates included
Read the sample before buying · Access and refund terms
© 2026 Renato Valdés-Olmos