Keeping one person shrinks everyone else's raise
2026NowDeadline · Decision window: 6 days until the reply on a key employee's move
Realistic synthesis
The people, events, figures, and technology in this matter are stated assumptions. They are not to be treated as information about real individuals or as observed events. Background documents are separate sources, and symbolic interpretations are recorded as discovery paths.
The question to decide
An employee holding concentrated operational knowledge has received an offer from a competitor. Retaining them at twice the team average plus special equity would consume most of this year's raise budget for colleagues and also require changing the promise to close compensation gaps at the same level. What will management choose: an individual exception, a change to the team compensation system, or preparing a handover?
Who decidesThe management of a software company
What the AI judgments chose
Reading the judgment record…
The options
The order shown is not a ranking of preference.
The situation as it stands
A key employee holds exclusive knowledge of service operations and has received an offer from a competitor. Decision deadline: 6 days to reply to the key employee's job change.
2026 fictional case · The compensation for keeping a key employee changes the team's commitments. The people, organizations, figures, and events are a synthetic premise constructed for comparison.
- Premise 1A key employee holds exclusive knowledge of service operations and has received an offer from a competitor.
- Premise 2The company promised a narrow compensation range at the same level, and colleagues have also raised the lack of knowledge sharing as a problem.
- Premise 3Paying an exception would consume most of the raise budget for the rest of the staff this year.
Where it holdsCompensation, roles, and the allocation principle to explain to the team
What is still unknown
- Unknown 1The extent to which that employee's knowledge is actually irreplaceable
- Unknown 2The period needed for knowledge transfer and the person's willingness to participate
- Unknown 3A published compensation principle the team can accept
Signals to decide again
- Decide what observation, responsible person, and confirmation window will verify “the extent to which that employee's knowledge is actually irreplaceable,” and re-decide if new verification changes the tradeoff of an option.
- Decide what observation, responsible person, and confirmation window will verify “the period needed for knowledge transfer and the person's willingness to participate,” and re-decide if new verification changes the tradeoff of an option.
- Decide what observation, responsible person, and confirmation window will verify “a published compensation principle the team can accept,” and re-decide if new verification changes the tradeoff of an option.
Where the paths partNot answers — paths that part from the same starting point
The key employee stated that independent research time ranks above compensation.
An actual handover confirmed that the team can already perform half of the key operational tasks.
Material and rootsThe frame, the values and the background documents
Where is the continuity of a company rooted once its members, customers, and purpose have changed?
An exploratory perspective chosen by the creator. Does not claim supernatural validity or the superiority of any particular option.The benefits and costs of the options accrue to different stakeholders. Which loss to accept remains undecided.
A subject for the decision-maker to argue over; the materials carry no conclusion of their own.- OECD · SMEs and entrepreneurship accessed 2026-09-08
- ICA · Cooperative identity, values and principles accessed 2026-09-08
The record of this question
- Question
FSP-VENTURE-05· version 1.4.0- Content identity, SHA-256
ec81ae0d01174cac34fb5255277dfcb9971c20906fa08713ccfafb09ebc1628b- Input files
- Question input JSON · What followed, JSON