This is a fair point. It seems like standard policy at lots of places is to not budge significantly on comp unless a Valued Employee is prepared to leave. You then end up with one of the three scenarios:

- the employee leaves anyways, since it's too late to change their mind

- the employee stays, but there's a loss of trust and loyalty

- the employee never planned to leave in the first place, and exploited your broken system

Valued Employees should be rewarded preemptively.

Willing to be there is a study that shows that most of the time the employee will not leave or is bluffing and that financial analysis shows its better to just let it play out. This analysis is probably true in a lot of industries but tends to not work so well in tech. So many tech workers are just mercenary with our jobs that we just ask for what we want and by the time we ask we are already out the door. In tech the business should realize their job is to actively work to keep employees from seeking competing offers especially in the current job market.

There's an exception for every rule. As a manager I've fought HR to get pay rises during pay freezes. And won. Bad managers roll over when presented with obstacles, great ones fight for their team.

The great ones also realize that there are other things employees value and build upon those, along with compensation.

The great ones also just leave themselves, rather than suffering the toxic culture on two fronts.

I think this is an often missed point. The managers are often just as overworked as the employees but have to handle negativity from 2 directions, both their employees and their managers. They are just people and often their hands are tied due to company policy. They are often just cogs in the wheel as much as we are.

Pushy, bossy, extroverted, or "people person" managers do that. The whole thing is stacked against docile introverts, no matter how many reasoned and well thought out arguments they make.