From a non pilot perspective
Our department want to make the default basic salary pay rise 0%, i.e. not have any cost of living raise (excluding allowance raises). The merit pot allocation would then be used to give greater increases to higher performers .. sound theory so far ... but with the rampant inflation I think there is a risk that people will just leave quicker as they would sink more quickly than they are now. We would then struggle to replace the ones we wanted to as our packages are not that attractive. 'Spose it's one way of flushing out the poor performers!!