Good article on an important topic. I would like to address what I perceive as assumptions in the perspective. We really need to get away from this idea that salaries are these paternalistic expressions of fairness. We earn money from providing value.<p>If you want people to stay, your options are to give them money, prestige, or stability.<p>- Money includes salary, bonus, commissions and contingent comp, stock options and perks and even vacation time.<p>- Prestige is conferences, publications, exposure to high profile brand clients and stakeholders, airline points hotel and travel rewards, charity sponsorship and matching, committee memberships, media and public facing representation, and leadership options.<p>- Stability includes things like investing in training, giving them headcount, bringing them into the strategic fold, partnerships, responsibility for key client or stakeholder relationships, etc.<p>Evaluate your total comp using the triad of Money, Stability, Prestige. Chances are you are weighted toward one, and there is a role out there with a different balance. I think HR salary bands are a wishfull opposite of market rates, and personally I think they're stupid for any company that is still growing and not just optimizing an established long term revenue stream. If you are a bank or institution, sure, but your entire business is an optimization problem not a growth problem. If there is any upside volatility in your revenue and you are making something new that people want, pay for value, because I'd argue you can't afford not to.<p>I've watched companies lose key engineers that delayed major product releases over a $10-20k salary bump while flying their marginalized director of special projects around in business class, and my conclusion is that compensation is arbitrary and a negotiations power game. Don't spend too much time reasoning about it.<p>The companies that retain people are the ones who figure out the Stability and Prestige elements of the triad.