The Worker is Worth His Wages

How Fair Compensation Glorifies God

My past few articles in this series have emphasized how your business depends on your people.

Your “human resources” aren’t a disposable asset. They aren’t just the biggest expense line on your income statement. For most businesses, they are the heart of the company. They create the value for customers that results in sales and profit. For the vast majority of businesses, the people are the business, and without them you can’t stay in business.

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What is a Worker Worth?

Too often, I hear business leaders in the middle of a hiring process ask, “What will it take to land this candidate?” In other words: What’s the minimum we have to offer for them to accept the job?

That’s the wrong question.

The better question is: “What is this person worth to us?”

There are at least three ways to think about an employee’s value:

1. Their direct financial impact.

In some roles — like sales or revenue-generating positions — this is easy to measure, but in most cases, it’s more nuanced. A strong hire can help a team move faster, take on more, or elevate the quality of work. What’s that worth? Will a highly skilled, experienced candidate deliver more value than someone less qualified?

2. Their indirect impact on others.

A great hire can boost overall team performance. Filling a skills gap often allows others to focus on what they do best. A capable employee also requires less oversight, freeing up managers and support staff. And when someone fits the culture and lifts team morale, that too has real business value.

3. Their replacement cost.

For current employees, consider what it would cost to replace them. If the market is offering more than you are, you may struggle to retain top talent. And replacing someone comes with significant costs:

• Lost productivity during the vacancy
• Recruiting and hiring expenses
• Onboarding and training time
• Ramp-up period before the new hire is fully effective

In short, paying employees what they’re worth isn’t just smart business —it demonstrates Godly integrity, kindness, and compassion. It’s about doing right by people while building a stronger, more sustainable organization.

Generally there are three decision points that involve compensation:

• When you are hiring a new employee.
• When you make annual performance-based compensation adjustments.
• When you are promoting an employee to a higher position.

In each of these decision points, you have the opportunity to demonstrate fairness, reasonableness, and generosity.

That being said, getting compensation right at the time of hiring is the most important. Not only does that decision set the baseline for all other adjustments, but the principle of compounding comes into play. Every dollar unfairly withheld from a deserving employee early in their career will never be repaid, and every dollar fairly earned provides the opportunity to create more financial value for the employee for the rest of their life.

As a manager in the corporate world, there were times when I “inherited” an employee that had been hired at too low of a salary. Company limits on how much I could increase their compensation in either annual adjustments or in promotions made it impossible for me to quickly get them back up to a fair level of compensation. That was frustrating for me and demoralizing (and unjust) to the employee.

Three Approaches That Dishonor God

Business owners and business leaders may be tempted to use compensation practices that appeal to their own human desires, but that dishonor God.

1. Maximizing Profits

Especially when a business is young and trying to establish itself, it may not be able to pay competitive salaries. Early employees may join the company because they are excited about the business’ mission and crave the excitement of being part of a startup as it goes through rapid growth.

Even once the company grows and establishes stability, it can be tempting for owners to keep compensation low to maximize profitability, either to fund more growth or to maximize the returns on the investments they’ve made in the business. This is wrong and God will hold you accountable. Listen to the first 4 verses of James 5:

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.

If you truly cannot afford to pay a fair and reasonable salary, then consider other non-cash forms of compensation (e.g. equity). But don’t withhold fair pay when you are able to pay it.

2. Discriminatory Treatment

Often, when the recruiting attitude is “what will it take to land this candidate”, conscious or unconscious discrimination can creep in. Sadly, I have heard business owners say “her husband has a great job so their family isn’t as reliant on her salary” — meaning “we can pay her less than she deserves.”

Another question that often comes up in the hiring process is “how much did you make in your last job?” First and second generation immigrants, and other minorities have often had to accept lower pay because they needed to take any job they could get to be able to feed their families. It is wrong to perpetuate that discrimination. Pay your people what they are worth.

3. Equal Pay

While discrimination based on demographics is wrong, discrimination in compensation based on the value contributed by the employee is essential.

Paying everyone exactly the same may seem like the easy answer, but when you do, the logical outcome is that your highest performers will leave to join companies that will reward their hard work, and your company will attract employees less motivated to excel.

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1–16) might appear to make the case for equal pay. A landowner hired four groups of workers: one group early in the morning, one late in the morning, a third early afternoon, and another late afternoon. At the end of the day he paid them all the same — a denarius (the standard wage for a day worker). This upset those that had been working all day who thought they deserved more, but the passage emphasizes that the landowner was fair to all and he was free to show compassion and be gracious to some (just as God is compassionate and gracious in giving His children more than we deserve). He paid a fair wage to the first workers and a generous wage to those that had been unable to find other work so that all could feed their families.

In contrast, in the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14–30), before leaving on a trip a man gave to each of his servants “according to his ability”, with the most capable man receiving five times as much as the least capable. On his return he rewarded them based on their performance.

Similarly, if you want your best employees to be happy and stay, pay them what they are worth. Even the act of not rewarding poor performance is compassionate because you are motivating the under-performer to become a better worker (or find another job where he can excel).

Have the Right Attitudes

Of all the decisions we’ll talk about in the “D” section of this series, compensation decisions may be the ones with the most direct connection to the “A’s” we covered at the beginning of the series.

Remember the God-honoring attitudes:

1. God owns my business (and everything else). I am just a steward. Just like in the Parable of the Talents, God has entrusted you with the cash from your business and expects you to invest it like He would for the good of the business and for His glory.
2. I am here to love others. Being a business leader isn’t about making you great, it’s about showing God’s love to others.
3. I do my work as for the Lord. It’s not about pleasing people, but making the sometimes hard decisions that are just, wise, and gracious.
4. God is always watching. Don’t think you can get away with treating employees unfairly. Remember the passage in James 5!
5. The world is also watching. Your workers, your customers, and your community are likely to judge you based on how fairly you treat your employees. If you treat them right, and your faith is apparent, they will respect you and you will represent Christ well.

Compensate your employees with these attitudes and you will do well.

What the Bible Says

• “You shall not cheat your neighbor, nor rob him. The wages of him who is hired shall not remain with you all night until morning.” (Leviticus 19:13)
• “Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.” (James 5:4)
• “For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain,’ and, ‘The laborer is worthy of his wages.’” (1 Timothy 5:18)
• “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, When it is in the power of your hand to do so.” (Proverbs 3:27)
• “Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.” (1 Corinthians 3:8)
• “And remain in the same house, eating and drinking such things as they give, for the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not go from house to house.” (Luke 10:7)
• “And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey.” (Matthew 25:15)
• “He who has a slack hand becomes poor, But the hand of the diligent makes rich.” (Proverbs 10:4)
• “And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:31)
• “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.