That's a cultural thing in the company I work for (or maybe broader in Germany, dunno), where some people think that if they start to negotiate, they might lowball candidates, and then they leave after half a year or so.
We try to hire more long term (we aim for 5+ years retention), dunno if that's related, or if there is any evidence to back this procedure.
I find it a bit weird myself, which is why as a candidate I'd like to know about it :-)
As an employee I found a nice hack around that. The employer made an offer and I made a counter offer, the employer said he couldn't meet it and I explicitly told him it was negotiable. He thought about it for a couple days and found a way to hack his system to give me more and I got something around the middle of our offers. We both ended up happy in the end, I'm still there.
We try to hire more long term (we aim for 5+ years retention), dunno if that's related, or if there is any evidence to back this procedure.
I find it a bit weird myself, which is why as a candidate I'd like to know about it :-)