Just for fun, I installed salva's Sort::Key and added:

sub x2 {
    my @sorted = keysort {
        $_->title =~ /Manager/ ? 'A'.$_->name : 'B'.$_->name
    } @employees;
}
[download]

With these results:

C:\test>junk87
             Rate    obvious     subtle functional          x         
+x2
obvious     186/s         --       -20%       -61%       -83%       -8
+9%
subtle      232/s        24%         --       -51%       -79%       -8
+6%
functional  477/s       156%       106%         --       -56%       -7
+2%
x          1085/s       483%       368%       127%         --       -3
+7%
x2         1717/s       822%       641%       260%        58%         
+--
[download]