A passive construction leader prices a move as a ledger, not a raise: the bonus they forfeit, unvested retirement match and deferred pay, a benefits year restarted, a longer commute, and a new boss. Pay the one-time losses with one-time money, the recurring ones with base, and the new-boss risk with written terms.
$79,000. That is what the passive construction leader in our worked illustration below walks away from by resigning in October, and nobody has mentioned salary yet. The reflex offer is a base raise. At an assumed 10 percent on a $160,000 base, it covers $16,000 of the gap in year one, which is roughly why the candidate thanks you warmly and stays where they are.
What does it cost to move a passive construction leader?
Moving a settled construction leader costs the sum of everything that person forfeits by resigning, plus a reason to move. In the labelled illustration below, the forfeitures total $79,000, all of it one-time money, before anyone discusses a raise.
The ledger changes size from seat to seat, but not shape. A project executive, a VP of operations and a division president carry the same categories, and senior seats hold more of their pay in deferred form. The best of these people are not looking. They are running work, and they move when someone clears their ledger. Their current employer knows the ledger too, and will price it in reverse in a counteroffer.
What does a passive construction leader give up by moving?
A settled construction leader gives up six things by moving. Four are money: a bonus earned but not yet paid, unvested retirement match, unvested deferred or phantom pay, and a benefits year already part-used. Two are not: a known commute, and a boss who already trusts them.
- The earned, unpaid bonus. Construction bonuses often pay months after the fiscal year closes. Sizing that buy-out is its own exercise, covered in sign-on bonuses.
- Unvested retirement match. Under IRS vesting rules a plan may hold the employer match on a 3-year cliff or a 6-year graded schedule. The leader’s own deferrals are always fully vested.
- Deferred or phantom pay. Unvested tranches of phantom stock or a deferred bonus pool are usually forfeited on resignation.
- The benefits year. A mid-year move restarts the deductible clock, and in June 2026 benefits were 30.0 percent of private-industry employer compensation costs, $14.07 of $46.89 per hour worked.
- The commute. The national mean one-way trip was 27.2 minutes in 2024, and 9.3 percent of workers spent 60 minutes or more, per Census commuting data.
- The boss. Nothing in cash closes this line, and most offers ignore it.
Where does a settled leader’s base sit in published wage data?
For construction managers, the BLS May 2025 national median wage was $114,990, with the 75th percentile at $151,640 and the 90th at $189,440. Senior construction leaders usually sit in the top quartile, and the metro moves the line.
The BLS wage data spreads widely by market. In Dallas the median was $103,550 and the 75th percentile $133,030. In Atlanta the median was $119,590 and the 75th percentile $150,460, and in Nashville $122,190 and $154,700. An Atlanta leader on $160,000 sits above the local 75th percentile, so a raise on top is moving toward the national 90th. The band is a wage figure and says nothing about the deferred stack a candidate lists under salary expectations, which is where the ledger gets expensive.
A worked illustration: the full ledger for one move
Take a project executive in Atlanta on an assumed $160,000 base with a 15 percent target bonus paid each March. Every figure here is assumed for illustration. Resigning in October forfeits the $24,000 bonus. An assumed $6,000 a year of employer match, 2 years into a 3-year cliff, leaves $12,000 unvested. An unvested phantom tranche is worth $40,000, and a restarted deductible year costs about $3,000. The one-time total is $79,000.
| Ledger line | Assumed amount | One-time or recurring | How to pay it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forfeited year-end bonus | $24,000 | One-time | Sign-on make-whole with repayment terms |
| Unvested 401(k) match | $12,000 | One-time | Same sign-on payment |
| Unvested phantom tranche | $40,000 | One-time, deferred | Replacement award on a vesting schedule |
| Benefits year reset | $3,000 | One-time | Same sign-on payment |
| Raise to justify the move | $16,000 a year | Recurring | Base salary |
| Longer commute | About 190 hours a year | Recurring | Schedule terms, not cash |
The commute line assumes 25 extra minutes each way: 50 minutes a day across 230 working days is about 190 hours a year, a month of working days spent in a truck.
Why does a base raise overpay and still miss?
A base raise is recurring money aimed at mostly one-time losses. It falls short in year one, when the forfeitures land, and overshoots every year after, because base compounds into the bonus, the match and every future raise.
Spread the $79,000 over 3 years of base and the raise is about $26,000 a year, which the company keeps paying for years on a cost that ended in year one. The alternative is to split the ledger by type. The bonus, the match and the benefits reset, $39,000 between them, go into one sign-on payment with written repayment terms. The $40,000 phantom tranche is replaced with a new deferred award on a similar schedule. Base carries only the $16,000 raise.
The phantom line is where cash offers go wrong. Paying it out today removes the handcuff the old employer built. A replacement award moves the handcuff to you, which is the point of having one. If the move needs a relocation, the reimbursement is now taxable wages, since P.L. 119-21 permanently removed the exclusion (IRS Publication 15-B). Gross it up; our piece on relocation packages sets out how. You no longer have to choose between an offer rich enough to move the leader and a payroll you can live with in year four. Every line so far has a price someone can write down. The last line has none, and a careful candidate weighs it longest.
How do you price the risk of a new boss?
You price the risk of a new boss with terms rather than cash. Give the finalist access to that person before the offer. Make sure the first-year bonus does not hinge on jobs the leader inherited. Then write a severance term covering the first year.
A settled leader has spent years earning credit with one person, usually the owner or president who has watched them handle a bad job and did not panic. Resigning sets that credit to zero. Worse, the jobs they will be judged on in year one were estimated, bought out and scheduled by someone else, and the forecast they inherit was built from what was written down. On most projects the thing that will cost money has not announced itself yet. A candidate who has run work knows this, and is pricing the chance of being blamed for a margin fade they did not create.
Three terms address it:
- Let the finalist meet the person they will report to, and read the WIP schedule for their jobs, before the offer is written.
- Set a floor under the first-year bonus, so an inherited fade does not erase it.
- Put a severance term for the first 12 months in the offer letter, sized in months of base.
None of these costs much if the hire works. They matter only if it does not, which is exactly the scenario a careful candidate is pricing.
Price the ledger before you write the offer
The candidate who thanked you warmly and stayed put was weighing $79,000 of forfeits and a stranger for a boss against a $16,000 raise. Write the ledger before you write the offer. List every line the finalist forfeits, mark each one-time or recurring, and decide which lines base should carry. Talk to us about the seat. Settled leaders are rarely found through a posting: they sit in seats they were not trying to leave, which is why moving one is usually confidential executive search for mandates that cannot be publicly posted.
Sources and further reading
- BLS wage data, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, construction managers (11-9021), May 2025
- Employer compensation costs, Bureau of Labor Statistics, June 2026
- IRS vesting rules, Internal Revenue Service, retirement topics
- IRS Publication 15-B, moving expense reimbursements
- Census commuting data, American Community Survey 1-year estimates, 2024