Exactly this. We just gave all our devs a significant raise - way above the norm, and way way earlier than we would. We're acknowledging the reality of demand, scarcity and wage inflation. My co-founder (also my wife) and I immediately felt our blood pressure drop once we did that.
Market conditions are making it hard to retain and very hard to hire. We've done a bunch of other stuff to recruit - which I described in another comment here - and it's making a huge difference. Employers who don't respond to these market conditions are in for a rough ride.
My old employer gave me a 3% raise in January and tried to make it some big gift. I left anyway in April for a 50% bump. New company, same level of responsibilities.
The old employer underpays everyone, so that percentage is higher than it otherwise would be, but still.
Kudos for doing the right thing. I hope (and expect) that for you and your business, it is the right thing. Hopefully those devs are quite skilled, and worth keeping around, and will stay and help the business grow! I feel like a lot of times employers think devs are expendable, and while that's true to some extent, devs also can be quite worth paying extra to keep around especially if they've accrued quite a lot of domain knowledge that pertains to your business.
A past organization of mine just had a big data breach. It would not surprise me if the near complete loss of domain knowledge and institutional knowledge was a contributing factor/cause.
Market conditions are making it hard to retain and very hard to hire. We've done a bunch of other stuff to recruit - which I described in another comment here - and it's making a huge difference. Employers who don't respond to these market conditions are in for a rough ride.