How can I allow an access role the ability to view pending employees?

If you'd like a role to view inactive employees, it will need a Field Group Bundle that has read access to the User Status field. This will grant the role visibility into to user profiles in every status (Active, Pending and Inactive) and cannot be restricted at all (i.e., to only allow visibility into pending users for specific departments, branches, etc.) 

Remember that the addition of this visibility will be applied to any Access Roles that utilize the Field Group Bundle you're provisioning it for—meaning all users in the Access Role will gain visibility. We often recommend creating a new Field Group Bundle and Access Role to accommodate this ability if you only want it available to a subset of users that don't have administrative abilities in Namely.