As I’ve watched AI disrupt everything, it’s no surprise that something so novel would interrupt business. But it never ceases to amaze me how business concepts that are as old as it gets can remain at the center of the conversation, too.

Case in point: retention. People have worked to retain workers forever. If you go back far enough, the incentive is easy. Stay with a master tradesman, and they’ll feed you as their apprentice before you can take over as a master yourself.

Now, the path to success and safety is harder to predict. Business is changing fast, and even something like retention is no longer the HR-focused issue it once was.

In fact, I recently heard from Colin Steinberg about this very issue. Colin is a respected wealth advisor and Partner at Institutional Architects, so he is fully steeped in this space. He uses concepts in corporate finance and estate planning that I can barely even begin to understand.

Colin pointed to something unexpected as the driving force behind retention, especially at higher levels of an organization: finances. But not just compensation or perks. Colin sees financial design as the incentive that can make or break retention moving forward.

Retention Isn’t an HR Issue Anymore

HR used to be at the heart of retaining employees. However, the complexities of the modern workforce are increasingly leading retention less toward human experience and interaction and more toward cold, hard dollar figures.

This shift makes sense. Contract workers and solopreneurs continue to increase—and owe their loyalty to no one. That means they want the best deals now. They want cash up front. They don’t care about things like wellness programs and health benefits.

Even for full-timers, compensation is a central part of the conversation. Pension packages are nonexistent, and even perks and benefits aren’t about showing employees you care. The old 20th-century model where your employer “takes care of you” has been replaced by a more cold, ruthless 21st-century alternative, where the best financial incentive wins.

This means the companies that can structure the best compensation packages have a genuine edge over the competition. This has put financial design (or, as the HR experts at MRA call it, compensation program design ) in the spotlight.

And the really important thing to understand here is that “design” goes beyond a basic paycheck. It considers things like external and internal equity and uses things like job performance and flexible pay to create more incentivizing compensation structures.

In other words, the way companies structure pay, benefits and upside matters now more than your HR rep when it comes to keeping talent in the building.

Good financial design requires intentional architecture behind things like deferred compensation, risk-reward balance and long-term incentives. This is especially important for high-impact earners and executives, who are at a premium in this market.

Focusing on the Group That Materially Impacts the Most Outcomes

When it comes to high-impact individuals in the workplace, Colin often sees companies over-relying on cash before exploring more efficient structures.

Companies think throwing more money at an individual is the solution—and in the short-term, this can get them in the building. But if you want them to stay, you have to build their compensation in a way that keeps them invested in your business’s success.

Colin’s work focuses on designing targeted plans for this small group that materially impacts outcomes the most. He looks past the salary figure and finds ways to financially design compensation to lure the best leaders and then make them feel invested and cared for.

It isn’t a simple process. One needs only to peek below the surface of the work to quickly get lost in the weeds. But, when you boil it down, what Colin and others like him do is find ways to reproduce things like equity upside in non-equity structures.

Easy examples that come to mind include deferred compensation and SERPs (Supplemental Executive Retirement Plans). These are well-established ways to shepherd a C-suite member’s compensation to the biggest payout over time.

But even then, there are plenty of complexities. For instance, the question isn’t just if you can defer compensation. It’s also the structure around that deferral.

An example Colin himself used not long ago is a senior executive who is 45 years old and invests compensation until he’s 65. If that structure is pre-tax (meaning all of the money compounds interest for the entire 20 years it's in the market), it can create a result that looks like it was in the market for seven years longer. It’s those little tweaks and adjustments that can make all the difference—and that can keep a leader in their chair longer.

Building Consistent Wealth in an Inconsistent Environment

The need for strong financial design—and its increasingly important role in retention—is why folks like Colin remain so busily employed. They are building retention systems that are not just options for compensation. They allow high-net-worth individuals to accumulate wealth in financially efficient and scalable ways—even in an economic environment that is unpredictable tomorrow, let alone 20 years from now.

Colin’s advice to business leaders looking to improve their retention ? Stop looking to HR for the answers.

Instead, start looking at your compensation and the financial design around it. Are you just offering a bigger baseline number than the next guy? Or does every job offer you push across the table come with a clear financial infrastructure? Just as important, are you communicating intentional financial design and making sure highly-qualified candidates know you’re in their corner, trying to help them succeed along with your organization today, next year and two decades from now?

If you can shift your perspective to focus on truly thoughtful financial design in your company’s compensation structure, you can boost retention without ever needing to throw another HR perk, initiative, or program at the wall to see if it sticks.