In Workday HCM, compensation grades define pay structures, while grade profiles allow those grades to be localized by attributes such as country, location, currency, or frequency. This separation is intentional and supports scalable global job architecture.

The best practice for configuring location-specific pay ranges for the same job profile is to create one compensation grade and then define multiple grade profiles, each with its own eligibility rules and localized pay ranges. In this scenario, separate grade profiles would be created for London, New York, and Milan, each reflecting local market conditions, currencies, and regulations.

Creating multiple compensation grades would unnecessarily fragment the job architecture and increase maintenance effort. Eligibility rules alone are not sufficient because pay ranges differ by location and currency. Grade profiles are specifically designed to solve this use case.

Once the grade profiles are created, the single compensation grade is attached to the Software Engineer job profile, and Workday automatically selects the correct grade profile based on employee location.

This approach ensures consistency, reduces configuration complexity, and aligns with Workday Pro HCM organizational design best practices.