> By bringing an offer your employees are proving their market value, and you don't want to match it, so they will leave.

Leaving is exactly what JohnFen actually recommended to these employees.

It's about treating people decently, in my view. It's not necessary to try to set up a bidding war in order to demonstrate market value. The disrespect that rankles me is the treatment of the company that made the offer, honestly.

I just choose not to play that game. It's unnecessary. If an employee can't just come to me and be straight about their compensation requirements, that's a problem.

The balance of power is still vastly in favor of the company that made the offer. Meaning, they could rescind the offer at any time for any reason and possibly ruin the potential employees life. Whereas the reverse case of the potential employee rejecting an offer is much less likely to have a material impact on the company. For this reason I don't think the company deserves that much concern.

>If an employee can't just come to me and be straight about their compensation requirements, that's a problem.

That's exactly what they are doing, but with evidence to boot so you are on the same page.

But it's not evidence of anything other than than a company has valued that potential employee at a particular rate. What an employee is worth to an employer is pretty subjective. Someone that is worth 7 figures to one company may only be worth 6 or 5 to another.

Having an offer in hand is valuable to the employee, certainly! There's nothing wrong with getting an offer, then asking your current employer for a raise that would meet or exceed that offer. The issue I have is actually communicating that offer to the current employer.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I'd certainly never punish or fire anyone who did that. I'm just not going to give in to what I perceive as extortion, and what I perceive as being unfair to the employer who made the offer.

How often can they ask you for a pay increase (the price discovery you approve of) without making you start thinking some other negative thing?

I don't understand this question. What negative thing would I think?

If someone asked me for a pay raise and I turned it down, I'd also explain exact why I turned it down. (This is hypothetical as I've not turned down a pay raise). I wouldn't think poorly of anyone for just asking for a raise, but I suppose I'd start to get annoyed if they did it daily when the reason that I turned them down was still true.