So you turned a private conversation into a massively political process. This might be better for you, but I bet it's a lot worse for a lot of your staff.
> Higher pay for those with higher influence and negotiation skills
being portrayed as a negative seems like a main goal was to make it harder for people to negotiate higher salaries.
I'm not sure if there's any reasonable way to remedy that problem though.
The company doesn't want to admit that at first but you are already aware.
This is where negotiation comes into play, and negotiating something higher than what your peers in the company perceive, while remaining in line with reality. Best case is that you move the "average salary" for that position upwards a notch.
Not necessarily. You could certainly be worth less or more to your company than what you're worth on the open market. If it's the former, you probably need a new job.
Especially for people that do great work but maybe are a little less extraverted.
If you can't perfectly negotiate and influence multiple people you are practically f..ed.
Glad not to have such types of so called managers trying to tell me what's good for me.
Especially considering Buffer was mentioned and their formula was average for the role adjusted for cost of living, time with company, experience and equity level in a very straight forward way.