This is a tough situation. I'm hoping this discussion gets some traction because I would love to get some feedback from others in the community. > I had a pool

This is a tough situation. I'm hoping this discussion gets some traction because I would love to get some feedback from others in the community. > I had a pool to divy up, which I did, and then my recommendations were ignored by higher management. Did you raise this back to higher management? > Worst case is I lose some people. The cost of losing a good person is much higher than whatever raise they might have gotten (in most cases). I would reiterate this point to the higher-ups.