Merit Raises

TLDR: I excelled at work during the year but got a middle raise and no one can explain what metric they used to come up with this decision.

My employer uses merit raises and I know this is not uncommon in the US. This is also not the first time I've work for a company that uses these. What is new is that there is no metric tied to what level you get and it is all arbitrary with most employees receiving a 3. Thing is there was a meeting where our exec told us that to get a 4 or 5 you need to have large impacts outside your working group related to our goals. Due to my position, everything I work on has cross departmentatal and even organization wide impact due to being in an oversight position.

I met with my manager and was informed of this decision. I pointed out that related to what our exec said, my rating should be at least a 4. He said that wasn't the case but couldn't point to any notes about this but pointed that I met my goals but didn't exceed them. I kept asking for evidence for this difference but nothing could be produced. He also said there are expectations for people in my role (I'm in a senior role). I then pointed out that in comparison to other senior level workers, my work is of higher quality as reflected by observations by people outside our unit.

He closed by saying that to get the higher rate you needed everything to be rated as a higher rate. Now this absolute vagueness really bothers me because it isn't clear. Other employers used metrics or some data to explain their decisions. It ended up the same with most people in the mid range but I also understand statistics and that is how distributions ideally work. I am deeply bothered by the vagueness of this and lack of accountability for these decisions.