More than three-quarters of managers have reported decisions being formally challenged or appealed when setting or adjusting base pay, and assigning performance ratings that influence pay (78%) in the past 12 months, according to research by people management platform HiBob.
Its survey of 4,700 people managers also found that 76% of respondents reported decisions around promotions being formally challenged or appealed.
While 83% of respondents said they can clearly justify pay and promotion decisions with supporting data, 93% said a lack of timely and relevant people or financial data contributed to a negative team outcome over the past year.
Almost a third (30%) said it played a large or very large role in a high performer being underpaid or under-recognised, while 27% stated it contributed to a promotion being given before an individual was ready.
A quarter (24%) admitted pay spend was misallocated, and 29% blamed data gaps for a decline in team engagement or morale driven by perceived unfairness or poor recognition.
More than two-thirds (68%) worry that similar roles are evaluated using different metrics in different teams, and 67% cannot ensure fair pay decisions without a unified view of people and financial data.
While most have timely access to HR (82%) and finance data (75%), 61% spend at least three hours assembling information from multiple systems before making people decisions, with 15% taking more than five hours.
Almost two-thirds (65%) said when getting the right HR or finance data feels like too much, they opt for an educated guess rather than miss a deadline, while 64% said role permissions or privacy rules limit access to data they reasonably need. Only 2% currently have access to a unified HR and finance dashboard.
Toby Hough, vice president of people and culture Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) at HiBob, said: “Bringing HR and finance together has never been an easy brief. But as scrutiny on pay and progression increases, that gap is becoming impossible to ignore. When people and financial data aren’t aligned, decisions take longer, feel harder to defend, and are far more likely to be challenged.
“Unifying that data doesn’t just make decisions faster, it makes them fairer. It gives leaders the confidence that the choices they’re making are in the best interests of both the business and their people, and that’s going to matter more than ever as we move into 2026 and beyond.”
