Hiring interviews that open the doors to new talent at your organization might be commonplace but what about stay interviews? If you’re unfamiliar with the term, stay interviews refer to the discussions between employers and employees that delve into the workers’ experience on the job. These interviews explore the employee’s choice to remain at the organization and what can be done to make their “stay’ more comfortable. There are many advantages of conducting stay interviews but the primary reason to do it is to understand how employees feel about the organization and what some of their primary struggles are.
Including stay interviews as a part of your employee retention strategies can create room for employee feedback to drive change at your business rather than spending first and then assessing its worth later.
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Getting the Basics Right—What Is a Stay Interview?
One point we’re persistent about bringing up every chance we get is the importance of feedback and communication. For the smallest of projects to run smoothly, there needs to be a system of open communication between the team members. If even one team member is left unsatisfied with the direction of the project, their contributions to it will wane, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Without their voluntary cooperation, the project will suffer and so will the dynamics between the team members.
For a large-scale organization to know what it is getting right and what it could do better, employee feedback is the missing key. Employees, the very same people who spend days and months familiarizing themselves with the company, are the ones who ultimately understand the organization best. CEOs and COOs may be well-placed to steer the business where the money is, but they’ll only find the company breaking down when the wheels fall off halfway towards their goals. If they don’t listen to employees and give them the resources they require for the company’s upkeep, there is no way for them to ever drive it towards their goals.
Stay interviews refer to a system where companies check in with employees and note down critical feedback from them. These interviews can be conducted with all employees but they’re primarily held with long-term, high-performing workers who have the most insight to offer to the company. With top-quality workers, employee retention strategies take the highest priority and the only way to sustain their loyalty is to cater to their needs satisfactorily. If companies wait too long to consider their feedback, they’ll find themselves conducting exit interviews instead.
Advantages of Conducting Stay Interviews
After you understand what these conversations are about, you might question the advantages of conducting these stay interviews. When employers view the organization, they get a top-down perspective from where a lot of the internal workings of the company are often hidden. In order to make improvements at the grassroots level, employers need to turn to those more familiar with the challenges that are faced there.
- Employee Retention: Employees who feel seen and heard are more likely to stay with an organization instead of looking for opportunities elsewhere
- Identifying patterns and work trends: Staying on top of trends is a good idea, even when it’s in relation to the work trends within your company. This can help address issues even before they develop into anything serious
- Employee engagement: Connecting with employees can help them feel like an active part of the organization rather than a disposable extension of it
- Benefits trickle down to all employees: Conducting stay interviews with top performers can help lead organization-wide changes that benefit all employees
- Identifying key issues within the company: Instead of ignoring critical issues, the company can strategize ways to attend to integral problems within the organization
- Better utilization of employee skill sets: By conversing with an employee employees might be able to understand where their knowledge and skills can best be put to use in the company
- Building healthy relationships with the team: Regular conversations with employees can improve the employer’s relationship with its employees. Building trust in a team is invaluable
- Improving hiring by changing practices and correctly framing the job description: Over time, the scope of a job role can evolve dramatically. Stay interviews help narrow the disparity
- Insight into the work culture: An employer might not be aware of how the work culture of the company has evolved unless they speak to the employees who have no choice but to participate in it. Identifying toxic practices can help resolve them quickly
- Introducing cost-saving solutions: Retention is better than constant rehiring, which is one way to save resources. Interviewing employees can also help identify the benefits they are seeking rather than wasting money on a benefit they don’t really want.
How to Conduct Stay Interviews
We’ve covered two important questions: “What is a stay interview?” and “What are the advantages of a stay interview?” If the benefits of the interview process seem appealing enough, then the next step will involve exploring the steps of conducting stay interviews at your company. As it turns out, the process of conducting these interviews is one of the simplest changes you’ll have to make at your company. Unlike other employee retention strategies that require elaborate investments and preparation from the start, the main groundwork for stay interviews is allocating sufficient time to talk to employees without rushing them.
Finalizing the questions you intend to ask may take some work as well, but conducting stay interviews is easy enough. The main work begins afterwards, when you have to consolidate the feedback and determine what you intend to put to use immediately. Before we get to that, here are some steps to consider when you want to utilize stay interviews at your company.
Identify Who You Intend to Interview
Ideally, you should talk to every employee and seek their insight on what changes are required at the organization. If that’s too large of an undertaking at the start, set a benchmark and identify high-performing employees or select those who have the most number of years working at the organization. These individuals have seen the company evolve the most and will likely have the best understanding of every rule and proceeding.
Schedule a Time to Meet the Employee
The stay interview should be conducted at a time when the employee is likely to be relatively relaxed and not preoccupied with returning to work as fast as possible. Ensure you give them sufficient time to talk about their experiences and not a mere ten minutes to wrap up. The first few times these interviews are conducted, the employee will likely be very reluctant to speak up due to their fear of the consequences, which is completely alright. Even if the time is underutilized, ensure there is sufficient time allotted for the interview.
Prepare Some Questions In Advance
Open-ended questions are a great idea but they might also leave the employee uncertain about what they are or are not allowed to talk about. Try to create some context with every question and feel free to elaborate on them if the employee appears uncertain about what they are expected to say. Do not force them to give feedback, whether positive or negative.
If they seem unwilling to share, ask them if there is anything that would make it easier for them to express themselves.
Create a Space Where They Feel Comfortable Sharing
While conducting stay interviews, choose a quiet location where the employee doesn’t have to be worried about being overheard and ensure that their feedback will not be openly shared if they do not prefer it. Sometimes an employee might be thinking about switching jobs due to an overbearing manager or toxic colleagues and they need to be reassured that the feedback they share won’t make things harder for them at the organization.
Suppose they are looking for an opportunity to switch to another team to advance their careers, again. In that case, they may prefer if things are processed internally rather than having their colleagues think they do not want to work with them anymore. In these situations, an employee will prefer you do not advertise what they discussed during the interview.
You should also remind the employee that these interviews are not part of their own performance review and will not reflect how they are evaluated.
Summarize Some of the Action Points That Could Be Considered Going Forward
Employees appreciate a good listener and if at the end of the stay interview, you’re able to highlight some of the things they spoke about, it might convey a genuine interest to them. If there are aspects that can be addressed, make a point to discuss how they want to make those changes and what they need from you to make it happen. For further changes that require the management to provide some input, provide reassurance that you will try to look into it.
Don’t make promises you cannot keep as it will only lead to disappointment.
Acknowledge the Employee’s Contributions
Conclude the stay interview by appreciating everything the employee shared with you and thank them for taking the time to do it—even if they didn’t necessarily have a choice. Congratulate them for their performance at the company and give them the credit they deserve. The opportunity to do this is another one of the advantages of conducting stay interviews.
Act—The Stay Interview Should Lead to Improvements At the Company
Asking the employee to share so much insight and feedback and then doing nothing about it is not a good move. It will be the last brick to solidify their opinion that the entire process was only taken up to confuse them into staying at the company in hopes of change. Even if the implementation begins in minor areas, seek opportunities to do more of the things the employees appreciate about the company, and reduce the negatives wherever possible.
Sample Stay Interview Questions
Getting started with stay interviews will be a little uncomfortable for both the employer and the employee. Especially if such conversations have never been broached before, doing it for the first time can rattle everyone in the process. It helps if the employer is prepared with specific questions and the employee is informed about the purpose of the meeting in advance.
To simplify things just a little, here are some sample stay interview questions to get the ball rolling.
- What do you look forward to most about work every day?
- How do you feel about the work environment at the company? Or more specifically within your team if you prefer to answer that?
- You recently finished a major project with your department. What was that like?
- What would you change about the entire process of taking up the project—anything that comes to mind from start to finish?
- What project have you enjoyed most at the company? Do you think you’ve been able to see similar projects to that one since?
- Are there any professional resources you’re looking for that would help with your career progression right now?
- Are you satisfied with your job role and all the tasks that fall under it or are there any changes you’d like to see?
- You’ve spent [number] years at the organization and we appreciate the commitment. What would you require to spend [number] more years with us?
- What is your work-life balance like right now? Is there anything we could do to help improve it?
- Are there any skills that you feel are being underutilized in your current role? Do you have any areas where want to develop your skill set?
- In terms of the social environment and culture at work, what are some things you enjoy and some that you don’t enjoy as much?
- Has any element of your work caused you excessive stress or discomfort recently?
- Are you comfortable with the pace at which your role in the company is currently proceeding?
- Do you have the kind of support you need to get your work done on a day-to-day basis? Is there anything you feel we could improve?
Once you get started, conducting stay interviews will become a natural part of the work process at your organization. While every bit of feedback may not reach the implementation stage, a lot of the major issues at the company can be resolved by prioritizing the insights that employees share. Enough so that employees can feel reassured about their place within the company, continuing to work to their best abilities with the support they need.