Well obviously it isn’t necessary to pay them ‘appropriately’ (as I assume you’re suggesting that many don’t. It may also be the case that the cost of losing a key employee times the expected number lost is less than the cost of paying them all enough that they’re paid ‘appropriately’).
But I think the more important question is: who are these key contributors? It’s perhaps easy to identify some of them, particularly those who are louder, and perhaps it is also possible to identify those who appear important but are, in some sense, bluffing. But there are also likely those who are key but whom the system for evaluation overlooks. It’s probably better for those people if they leave as they may find an employer who can better recognise their talents (and leverage them and pay them for it). I don’t think I’d do a great job at recognising such key people even among those I work closely with but maybe I’m just bad at that sort of thing.
I think peers in a team always know who is the one who gets almost everything done. Maybe people in managament or in leadership positions don't know, but me in an individual contributor role always know who is the most productive and the one with the most business knowledge of my team.
Obviously identifying key people is hard, or everyone would get it right. Most important things are like that.
(I don't think it's quite as hard as you're making it out, though. Who are the people you go to first with questions about how stuff works?)
Maybe we have a mismatch on what "appropriate" pay means. If the expected cost of losing someone is less than what you're paying them, maybe you're paying them more than what's appropriate. But it does sound a bit like you're falling into the same trap as GP in assuming you have to pay everyone the same rate; I could be misreading you.
Easier said then done. Firstly it requires for you to know what you’re doing is both a key project and something in which paying more would be more likely to result in its completion.
Is it though? I've never worked as an actual employee, but I'm working in long-time contracts as a freelancer with companies. I've always found it pretty easy to tell who was carrying a project and who was dead weight. Might be different and harder to calculate for new projects, but for existing ones that are maintained, observing who gets asked when weird things happen and who solves the strange issues usually identified the people who were instrumental. If someone is off a week and nothing moves, that's someone you probably want to keep (and probably also a situation you want to resolve, because that's not a good thing).
Managers responsible for promoting usually aren't in the trenches and getting honest feedback is actually hard.
When asking people about the performance of their peers, you usually get equally positive feedback unless folks are fucking up.
You have a good point though. Perhaps managers shouldn't be asking for feedback on specific individuals, but ask individuals who they go to for help and mentoring.
