The recommender is the employee's manager, and the approver is the manager of that manager by default.
However, that manager is not the final approver.
After the manager's manager "approves" the recommendation that "approval" goes to that manager's manager for another approval and so on and so forth until it reaches the top of your organization.
Admins are unable to assign specific approvers and recommenders while setting up a comp cycle but it IS possible to remove specific managers from the approval chain when setting up a compensation cycle. If you toggle off a specific Recommender/Approver on the Roles page, their manager becomes the new Recommender/Approver. Learn more in Change or Edit Recommenders or Approvers.
Example:
Alice reports to Bob > Bob reports to Carol > Carol reports to Denise.
By default, Bob is Recommender for Alice, and Carol is the first Approver, and Denise is the second Approver.
If Bob is toggled off in the cycle setup so he is not Recommender, now Carol is Recommender and Denise is the first Approver.
