The best employee often stays invisible.
Not because they hide. Because they just do their job well. No drama. No escalations. No “we need to talk about X” in every meeting. So they don’t get the attention.
Where the attention goes
In most companies and departments, meetings and discussions are dominated by problems. The underperformer. The team that keeps missing deadlines. The person who can’t collaborate. When and how to put them on a PIP. When and how to let them go.
A lot of effort goes into fixing the situation or managing the exit. Management time. HR time. Emotional energy. All of it flows toward the failing employee or the broken team. That’s understandable - problems demand a response. But the side effect is that when someone simply delivers - on time, without fuss, without needing to be chased - they don’t create moments that land on the manager’s radar. No fire to put out. No conversation that has to happen. So their “goodness” stays in the background. Unspoken. Not reflected in recognition, promotions, or raises. The system is optimized for noticing what’s broken, not what’s working quietly.
So they leave
After a while, the good employee looks around. They get passed over for promotions or raises - visibility and rewards go to the ones who get the attention, whether the problematic ones (who can even feel “important” because they’re always in the room) or the ones who are loud. Doing a great job quietly doesn’t translate into growth or appreciation. So they look for a place where their work will be seen and valued. They find a “better” job and leave.
What management is left with
Management is left busy babysitting or firing the “bad” employee instead of keeping and improving what’s actually good. The best people slip away while the organization doubles down on the ones who were already costing it the most - in time, in stress, in lost productivity.
The invisible good employee isn’t invisible because they’re not valuable. They’re invisible because the system is built around problems, not quiet excellence. So we have to design for the opposite.
What could help
Default raise. Make raises periodic for everyone. The manager’s job is not to pick who gets the raise - it’s to name who doesn’t. Good people are included by default. The burden of proof shifts to the exception.
Recognition on the agenda. Add a standing item: Who delivered well recently that we haven’t acknowledged? So “no problems” doesn’t mean “nothing to say” about people. You have to look.
“No news” counts as good. Same idea, different lever: in reviews and calibration, treat no escalations, no PIPs, delivered on commitments as a positive outcome - not as “we have nothing to talk about.” Quiet reliability becomes a category that gets rewarded, not ignored.
If we want to keep the people who actually make things work, we have to design for it - before they decide they’re better off somewhere else.
Companies, industries, and roles are different - so none of this is always applicable. Yes, some of it sounds a little radical, or at least different from what we’re used to. But let’s be honest: very often it is. Just think about it.