I remember the first time I went to my CTO to get a retention raise and, frankly, how easy it was. I think you're right in that there's a decent amount of money

I remember the first time I went to my CTO to get a retention raise and, frankly, how easy it was. I think you're right in that there's a decent amount of money left on the table because the managers don't reach for it when they can. That being said, I've always been able to get _SOME_ money for retention, but I've not always been able to get enough. If they go interview somewhere else and their current salary is $120K, it's entirely conceivable they could be getting an offer of $160 with a bonus structure that's better. I've even encouraged employees to leave before when it sounded like they were going to get put into a position for growth that we couldn't offer. If they're already feeling stifled or short changed enough to go looking, any move you do to keep them now is just delaying the inevitable. If I let someone leave with a clear conscience, that's someone who could come back to the company even better than they left (it's happened a surprising amount of times in my career). It's also someone who can help me and/or my company in the future, whenever our paths may cross again. I have followed managers to companies and I've had employees follow me to companies. If you just adhere to the damn golden rule things are a lot easier for everyone involved.