The demand for workers has led some U.S. companies to scratch annual raises, switching instead to more frequent pay reviews in an effort to compete for talent and keep pace with rising wages, write Lauren Weber and Chip Cutter for the Wall Street Journal. “When the market is evolving in real time and there really isn’t a leading indicator other than what you’re seeing to compete and hire, you quickly have to adjust,” said Irma Lockridge, the chief people officer with CoorsTek Inc., which makes industrial ceramics. The Colorado company in 2021 began doing quarterly reviews, primarily to ensure it could hire and retain workers, particularly for hard-to-fill jobs. In a January survey by consulting firm Mercer, a quarter of respondents said they were considering increasing the number of salary reviews that take place each year. “These tend to be persistent decisions” as employees get used to a new cadence of salary reviews and expect them to continue, Tauseef Rahman, a partner in Mercer’s career business, told Weber and Cutter. Once companies put in place a new process, “it’s difficult to scale it back, so I suspect organizations are cautious.”