“Pay gets people in the door. It doesn’t keep them there.” That’s not a philosophy — it’s what three people who deal with retention across three very different workforces (manufacturing, nonprofit family services, and food service) all said, independently, when asked the same question.
Sherry Wolfe’s answer was a combination: open communication starting from the top down, fair benefits at a reasonable cost, and fair pay relative to the local market. No single lever — a mix.
Michael Berman’s staff do some of the hardest jobs there are, working directly with vulnerable families. His read: “Employees want to feel valued, supported, and respected in the workplace. That kind of recognition in our industry goes a very long way.” Recognition isn’t a nice-to-have in his world — it’s a retention strategy for people doing emotionally demanding work.
Peter Kokkinakos manages this in a sector that’s lost 1.3 million workers in the past year, for reasons ranging from immigration policy to retirement to broader demographic shift. His answer had the least room for sentimentality and still landed on the same place everyone else did: “People stay where they feel respected. They see a future and they trust that leadership has their back. Pay gets them in the door, but the culture and growth keeps them.”
The pattern across manufacturing, nonprofit human services, and restaurants: retention isn’t a compensation problem you solve with a bigger number. It’s a trust problem, and trust gets built through communication, recognition, and whether people can see a future for themselves in the organization. Three sectors, three job types, one answer.ent vocabularies for the same idea: leverage doesn’t come from doing more yourself. It comes from picking the right partners.
