Earlier quoted context omitted.
I appreciate your honesty here. I would argue, you should appreciate your employee's honesty as well. If you have a market based salary view of the world, and an employee says they're actually worth more than what your merit/market system is paying them (and has proof), you should probably respect that. The fact they're coming to you first is a risk in and of itself.
> an employee says they're actually worth more than what your merit/market system is paying them, you should probably respect that as well. We are in total agreement here!
> Coming to me with an offer letter in an attempt to get a pay raise is a thing that I think speaks very poorly of the person.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate your honesty here, But I don't think that's fair, and probably why you're getting push-back in this thread.