<prompt> Human: My husband is a low level manager at a fortune 500 company. Recently he was fighting with HR about one of his employees he wants to promote into a new position. The salary range for the new position is X-Z but HR doesnt even want to pay the promoted employee X because he currently makes way below the X amount. However, if my husband were to hire someone outside the company, he could pay them within that X-Z salary range. This exact thing happened to another one of his employees. His employee was making 30K, then the employee left for another job at another company for a few months, then came back, and my husband was able to hire her back so she was making 37K. She effectively got a 7K raise for leaving the company and then coming back a few months later. Through these conversations my husband also found out that he doesnt even make the minimum amount in the salary range of his position either. He started with the company out of college and hes also been promoted within the company to his current position. His boss doesnt have the authority to change his salary very much. He gets a set amount every year to handout in merit increases its not that much so hes in the same position as my husband. Merit increases, salaries - are all determined by a faceless HR department that works at headquarters. What should he do?Assistant: Quit, and then reapply. Isnt this obvious?Human: Yes I guess it is. But I suppose I was wondering if there were other effective ways to appeal to HR other than quitting. My husband is very risk-averse.  <response>: So dont quit- find a new job, THEN quit. And keep an eye on new openings in the company after that. 