What is a stay interview?

Stay interviews identify what needs to be done to retain individuals who are considered to be high value and/or high flight risks. It may be that certain roles are turning over quickly, a certain point in tenure is a risk point (eg. 18 months or 2 years), or you may simply want to interview everyone in your high potential or high performance groups.

Why outsource stay interviews? Shouldn’t managers or HR do this?

Ideally managers would have open supportive relationships with their staff and have the skill and motivation to hold regular conversations with them to stay in touch with their levels of engagement and commitment. Unfortunately this is often not the case. Indeed our data shows that line managers are a direct cause of turnover in around 20% of cases and an indirect cause in many more. Line managers then, are not always the best people to be holding these conversations as they are often at least part of the problem.

While many HR professionals have the skills to conduct a stay interview they rarely have the time to do so. In addition most high performing HR staff would prefer to be debriefing and acting on such feedback rather than spending hours collecting it.

How would we use stay information?

As with on-boarding information, the primary value of stay reports is in tailoring action to retain a particular individual. Trend reports are also valuable for identifying improvements needed at a team or organisational level. Click here for more information on on-boarding interviews.

What’s covered in a stay interview?

• Satisfaction with role
• Satisfaction with manager
• Satisfaction with team
• Satisfaction with organisation
• Satisfaction with known drivers of turnover
• Likely risk factors to employee retention
• Actions needed for retention