What is a Stay Interview?

While most people know about the exit interview, many employers are implementing what’s called a “stay” interview with their current employees. It’s like a review for the employer instead of an employee review.

A stay interview helps an employer learn why key employees stay with the company. While learning why workers stay, it also helps to identify problems that cause them to leave too. Stay interviews can be conducted once a year. It shouldn’t be based on the time that the employee was hired like employee reviews. When you hold them all at the same time, you can implement changes that can be tracked over the course of the year.

Improve the Organization

Exit interviews are used to learn how the company can improve to keep employees happy. Unfortunately, once a person has given notice, any knowledge can be wasted. The problem for that one employee might not be an issue for the rest. It’s when the company does a massive group of stay interviews that the common problems across the company can be addressed. For example, one employee might have left for more money while another left for more benefits. There are still employees that stay in the company. They might not want more money or different benefits. It’s vital to learn what makes them happy in the company.

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Employee Retention

High employee turnover can cost a company huge amounts of money. When the employee leaves voluntarily, there are recruiting costs, onboarding as well as training that has to occur. These are all costs that can be avoided by keeping important employees happy. When companies are mindful about employee retention, they are also more sensitive to how the rest of the staff has to pick up the slack when other employees leave.

Questions to Ask

• What tempts you into thinking about leaving?
• What is it about your job that makes you happy to get out of bed each morning?
• If we changed your role completely, what would you miss that you’re doing now?
• What bothers you most about your job?

How to Make the Interview Successful

Asking the right questions and really taking note of the answers without being defensive is the only way that you’ll be able to implement changes in the business that will stop employee turnover. While one or two employees might leave your company for reasons beyond your control, most can be avoided. Take all the information received from each employee to get an overall theme of their problems as well as what they love about the company.

A successful stay interview will give you insights into the minds of your employees. It might help if the big boss didn’t do the interviews. Have a manager do them, or the HR department if you have one. It’s important that the employees feel they can voice their opinions without repercussions too. There should be a trust between management and employees that will allow them to speak freely without risk.