It was a landmark year in part due to freezing pay. I don’t know, everyone likes more money, but having been in leadership positions and now being an owner it’s not as simple as most “individual contributors” tend to imagine. For non-trade/non-service industry jobs, longevity or inflation are never good things to peg pay rates to, imo. Market rates and individualized retention considerations are good. For all we know, the “pay increase” budget was used to fund higher premium costs on the backend to keep ee benefit costs flat. With the glut of industry layoffs and supply of talent theoretically seeing a bump, a pay freeze doesn’t sound absurd to me. IME, the reality is that most higher level employees don’t jump over single digit percentage pay increases. If they dislike the environment they’ll go in any case unless you’re paying an absurd nuisance fee to keep them. If they like the environment and job, it’s worth more to them to stay in that environment and ride out these intermittent policies. I’ve never worked at a company where I felt entitled to an annual cost of living pay raise. If you feel you’re getting a fair deal for the important work you’re doing, keep doing it. If it’s a raw deal, jump. But the entitlement attitude is one I stereotypically associate with lower-value cattle employees. Do more, get paid more. Take on more responsibility, get paid more. Career and talent progression isn’t simply pegged to time for everyone, and so neither is pay.