There’s no overstating the workplace upheaval that companies have experienced in recent years. The pandemic that upended office norms by prompting a mass migration to remote work also ushered in an unprecedented labor squeeze, with employees jumping ship for new opportunities or opting out of jobs entirely. Rampant turnover gave rise to a fiercely competitive labor market, one where hanging on to key employees became paramount—and substantially more challenging.

The bottom line? More and more companies are finding that compensation-related retention incentives are no longer enough to keep employees engaged and dampen attrition, Matt Molberger, managing director at Pearl Meyer, told executives participating in a recent roundtable. At the event, which was cosponsored by Pearl Meyer and Chief Executive, he explained that public companies are “looking at their employee populations and feeling like decisions made over the past few years are not achieving all of their objectives, namely to motivate and retain people.”