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The Work of Three People

Early in one career, a manager once said something that was meant as a compliment: you do the work of three people. It felt good to hear, right up until the actual raise conversation happened, and it turned out to be nothing more than the standard annual percentage increase.

That gap between recognition and actual compensation is what eventually leads good people out the door. It happened twice across one career, and both times, the companies later admitted, more than once, that letting that person go had been one of their biggest mistakes.

The Real Pain: Losing Talent and Not Knowing Why

The real pain shows up constantly right now, in a labor market that genuinely favors employees for the first time in years. Companies watch young project engineers, project managers, and assistant project managers get recruited away, and they struggle to understand exactly why it keeps happening.

The bigger cost is rarely just one departure. Losing experienced people creates a ripple effect, since replacing that experience takes far longer than losing it did, and companies that cannot train new talent as fast as they lose it fall further behind every time it happens.

The Failure Pattern: The Base Bargain Deal

The failure pattern is treating compensation as something to manage quietly and minimally, hoping loyalty, culture, or company pride will make up the difference. It rarely does. Underpaying someone while hoping they will not notice, or hoping they will stay anyway out of some sense of obligation, is a bet that consistently loses.

Expecting an employee to stay loyal despite being underpaid misunderstands what loyalty actually means in the first place. People are not obligated to a company the way they are to their own family, their own values, or their own future. Expecting otherwise sets up a retention strategy that was never built on anything solid to begin with.

A few signs tend to show up when a company has slipped into a base-bargain mindset without realizing it, and they are worth checking honestly:

• A valued employee has never been offered a raise proactively, only in response to a competing offer or a resignation letter.
• Leadership assumes loyalty or culture will offset below-market pay rather than addressing the pay gap directly.
• Conversations about compensation feel uncomfortable or secretive rather than open and expected.

This Isn’t Disloyalty, It’s Just Smart

None of this means someone leaving for meaningfully more money, more responsibility, and better balance for their family is being disloyal. It means they are making a smart decision, the same decision most leaders would want their own children or their own team members to make in the same position.

If a company would not trust someone’s judgment to turn down a genuinely better opportunity, that says more about how replaceable the company assumes that person is than it does about the employee’s character.

Two Messages to the Whole Company

Here is what putting this philosophy into practice actually looks like. Rather than leaving these ideas as private opinions, they got written out directly and shared with an entire company through an internal culture chat, plainly and without hedging.

One message stated it directly: the company will never shame anyone for leaving or taking another job, and if that is someone’s choice, the company will help in any way it can, because people owe loyalty to their faith and their family, not to a company. A second message addressed pay just as directly: the company pays top dollar for its people before they ever have to look elsewhere, actively invites people to advocate for more compensation if they feel they deserve it, and deliberately avoids relying on bonuses to make up for an under-market base salary. Both messages were sent to make one thing unmistakably clear: there should never be a reason to feel ashamed about discussing pay or a potential departure.

Why It Matters: The Bullwhip Effect of Losing Talent

This matters because losing talent rarely stays contained to just one open position. It creates what is sometimes called a bullwhip effect, where losing one experienced person disrupts everyone who depended on their knowledge, their relationships, and their capacity, and training a replacement takes far longer than the departure itself.

Treating compensation reactively, only responding once someone already has another offer in hand, guarantees a company is always negotiating from behind rather than staying ahead of the problem entirely.

Teach the Framework: The Keeper Test and Radical Transparency

A useful diagnostic here is the keeper test: if a specific person told you today they were leaving for a better opportunity, would you fight hard to keep them, or would you feel a quiet sense of relief? That honest answer reveals exactly where someone actually stands, and it works just as well when applied to yourself, as an employee asking your own supervisor the same question about you.

This only works inside a culture of radical transparency, being genuinely open about compensation, decisions, and even the possibility of someone leaving, rather than treating those topics as forbidden or shameful. A team that can openly discuss pay and openly discuss the option of leaving ends up with far better transition plans, far more advance notice, and far more trust than a team where those conversations stay hidden until it is already too late to do anything about them.

A few practical markers separate a genuine retention culture from one hoping loyalty will paper over the gaps, and they are worth checking directly:

• Raises get offered proactively, based on the value someone is actually delivering, rather than only in response to a resignation or a competing offer.
• Employees feel genuinely safe raising the topic of compensation or a potential departure without fear of shame or retaliation.
• Leadership can honestly answer the keeper test for every key person on the team, and acts on what that answer actually reveals.

Turning This Into Daily Practice

This does not require complicated compensation software or an elaborate new process. It starts with a habit as simple as regularly asking people directly what they believe they are worth, and asking supervisors honestly how hard they would fight to keep each person on their team if a competing offer showed up tomorrow.

Pairing that honesty with proactive raises, paying ahead of the market rather than catching up to it after someone already has one foot out the door, closes the gap between what a company says it values and what it is actually willing to pay for.

Connecting It Back to Building People, Not Just Projects

None of this happens without leaders willing to have uncomfortable conversations about money openly and early, rather than avoiding them until a resignation forces the issue. Building that kind of transparent, proactive culture is exactly the kind of leadership work that keeps strong teams together.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow, including the culture and compensation practices that keep good people from feeling like they have to look elsewhere.

The Challenge

So here is the challenge worth carrying into your next one-on-one: ask yourself the keeper test honestly for each person on your team, then ask whether your compensation is proactively reflecting their real value, or quietly waiting for them to ask first. As Jason put it plainly, “There is no such thing as loyalty to a company.” On we go.

FAQ

Why does Jason say there’s no such thing as loyalty to a company?

His view is that people owe genuine loyalty to their faith, their family, and their own growth and well-being, not to an employer. A company earns retention through fair pay and genuine culture, not through an expectation that employees will stay out of obligation alone.

What is the Netflix “keeper test,” and how is it used here?

It asks whether you would fight to keep a specific person if they told you they were leaving for a better opportunity, or whether you would feel relieved instead. Applied honestly, it reveals exactly where someone stands and whether their compensation and treatment actually reflect their real value to the team.

Why does proactive pay matter more than counteroffers after someone gets a competing offer?

Waiting until someone already has another offer means a company is negotiating from a position of catch-up rather than genuine appreciation. Paying ahead of the market from the start avoids the bullwhip effect of losing talent and having to scramble to replace their experience.

Does this philosophy mean employees have no responsibility to their employer?

No, employees are still expected to deliver real value and perform well, and compensation should reflect that. The point is simply that fair pay and honest culture, not appeals to loyalty, are what actually earn a team’s continued commitment.

What does “radical transparency” look like in practice around pay and departures?

It means making conversations about compensation and even potential departures normal and safe, rather than something to hide or feel ashamed of. A culture built this way tends to get more advance notice, better transition planning, and stronger trust than one where those topics stay hidden until someone has already resigned.