To be competitive in the market for talent, companies do need to “match” competing offers. But matching does not imply paying the same compensation (“paying market”). Matching means creating as much value for your employees—the difference between compensation and WTS—as your company’s competitors.

It is different if you are from the middle or bottom tiers of your sector. In that case, not everyone will want to work with you, and perhaps most people won’t want to work with you, as they will be hoping for something better, whether realistically or not. If you are in this position, as many of us are, you need to think especially carefully about

the idea of hiring conscientious or hardworking individuals is hardly a novel one, so if there are any qualities that are reflected in the going market wage for an individual, you would expect conscientiousness and being a hard worker to be among them. Conscientiousness, in essence, is too easily and uniformly valued in the marketplace.