Cameras were installed with complete agreement of the team For insurance issues.

My concern would be about how comfortable employees would feel voicing disagreement to the owner of the company about having cameras installed where they work. They might feel like it would make them seem like they had something to hide.

So if they had not agreed, you wouldn’t have installed the cameras regardless of insurance issues?

I legitimately did not know it was standard (or legal) practice to record video and audio of your employees.

Given the nature of their conversation, I wonder whether this was made known to them at the time they received their offers.

But to address your post, if an employee isn’t expressing gratitude for a raise, they probably don’t agree that the raise was fair. This is the important issue and one that you may want to gently broach with the employees if you value them at all. But keep in mind that they’re not obligated to be grateful for what is contractually due to them any more than you’re obligated to thank them for what you feel is mediocre performance.

Employment is a two-way street.

And yes, employees who feel like they’re not being valued (in terms of compensation) are going to think of other ways to increase their compensation. You would too.

And in fact, you did. You went into business for yourself because you obviously saw an opportunity to do better financially in the long run, and have more control over over your working conditions. (Case in point, you’re out sick for two months and have the ability to watch what your employees are up to when you’re not there. You don’t have to worry about whether you’ll still have a job when you return. Or whether the company will find some other reason to let you go as an excuse. And presumably you still received compensation during your absence. This would not be the case if you worked almost anywhere else for anyone else.) I don’t know why you guys can’t see that (at least some) employees want the same for themselves.

You should offer to sit down with them and have an honest discussion/airing out of grievances for both parties and see if you can’t come to some mutually beneficial resolution here. If you can’t, then you can’t. Part ways amicably like adults and go on with your respective lives.

But disabuse yourself of the notion that anyone who works for you should be ever so grateful to be there and never question their compensation. They have aspirations and needs just like you did when you struck it out on your own.