Doing my job well, regardless of the failures of upper management and executives.
Merit plays no role in compensation. Even a series of continual outstanding performance reviews doesn't provide for compensation increase consideration.
There are some employees that put their heart and soul into their work, and they make every effort to keep morale up.
They need to respect the policies of department managers. Upper management needs to let department managers do their jobs, quit interfering and actually support them.
Acknowledge the efforts of all the "invisible" employees that contribute a large amount of the effort that make the executives look good, instead of them taking all of the credit, and dismissing those efforts as insignificant and unimportant.