[bb88]

I appreciate your honesty here. I would argue, you should appreciate your employee's honesty as well.

If you have a market based salary view of the world, and an employee says they're actually worth more than what your merit/market system is paying them (and has proof), you should probably respect that.

The fact they're coming to you first is a risk in and of itself.

[JohnFen]

> an employee says they're actually worth more than what your merit/market system is paying them, you should probably respect that as well.

We are in total agreement here!

[bb88]

You said:

> Coming to me with an offer letter in an attempt to get a pay raise is a thing that I think speaks very poorly of the person.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate your honesty here, But I don't think that's fair, and probably why you're getting push-back in this thread.

[JohnFen]

The part that gives me pause isn't that the employee is agitating for their own interest. That's good and expected. It's the method by which they're doing it.

It's OK if you and others don't think it's fair. We just disagree on that aspect. I don't think it's fair for an employee to use that particular method. To me, it comes off as a kind of extortion to the current employer, and mistreats the employer who made the offer.

Others can, of course, have a different opinion. Nothing wrong with that. We simply disagree.

To make a little meta-comment: I am genuinely surprised at the negative reaction I've gotten from a few people here. I really didn't think I was saying anything all that controversial. Live and learn, I guess!

[bb88]

Probably it was the extortion comment. You could also I guess call it an ultimatum.

But then again companies typically do shitty things to employees all the time because the company has the leverage. You've probably witnessed some of that yourself.

Sam Altman and OpenAI come to mind.

So I guess I don't understand what's changed about the relationship when the employee finds leverage to use against the company.