Retention Strategies, Talent Management
The best-kept secret to retention? The stay interview. Here’s how structured conversations with talent help build trust and employee engagement.
When was the last time managers sat down and talked with their employees about their goals and what motivates them? Was it during the interview process? Or when performance reviews rolled around?
If the next time you sit down to meet with top talent is during an exit interview, then it’s too late.
After the Great Resignation of 2021, the stay interview has become an increasingly important tool in strengthening workplace culture. It’s a conversation not focused on reasons for quitting, but rather on why workers are staying put.
Leaders at high-performing workplaces understand that proactively addressing people’s workplace concerns and understanding what they need to grow is key to employee retention and engagement.
What are stay interviews?
Stay interviews have been adopted by great workplaces for some time. This interview is essentially a meeting between leadership and team members that goes beyond the typical one-on-one check-in. This informal, employee-focused conversation is an opportunity for managers to sit down with their first reports to understand how they’re feeling in their current role.
Stay interviews share a similar purpose to exit interviews: an opportunity for leaders to gain candid insight into the employee experience and company culture. The critical difference is that stay interviews provide an opportunity to ensure your people are thriving within your organization.
A stay interview has two key objectives:
1. Learn what your employees like and dislike about their role, function, and company culture
2. Build trust through two-way communication between managers and people
Stay interviews are an easy way to understand better the unique challenges and experiences of diverse individuals in the workplace and take action to improve the employee experience.
The benefits of stay interviews
Here are four compelling reasons why organizations should make stay interviews part of their company culture:
Improved retention rates
Employees eventually feel stuck if they’re not developing and if the organization isn’t investing in their growth. They’ll eventually want to find more opportunities to grow elsewhere.
Research backs this up: 53% of your workforce is considering new opportunities. Rehiring new talent is expensive. The cost of replacing a single employee can range from one-half to two times an employee’s annual salary, according to Gallup.
Introducing stay interviews is a cost-effective solution to help organizations identify and address the factors that contribute to turnover. Giving employees a voice, in the form of a stay interview, is a powerful retention strategy – it demonstrates that leaders are working to stay connected with all employees and believe they have something valuable to say
Higher employee satisfaction and engagement
Stay interviews provide employees with a platform to share their needs, concerns, and aspirations in a one-on-one environment. Organizations that act on stay interview feedback help improve employee morale and job satisfaction.
Nissan implemented listening programs that included “skip-level meetings” where employees met with more senior managers to ensure leadership were hearing from a range of their people.
“It is important to be genuinely interested in listening to people and being open to receiving feedback, both positive experiences and areas that require improvement,” said Laura Gillespie, director of talent management, Americas, for Nissan.
The car company saw clear business results from their efforts and, importantly, a resounding 83% of employees said they’re proud to work there.
Early identification of workplace challenges
Listening early and often helps organizations uncover critical issues related to work, leadership, career growth, and company culture.
Addressing pressing concerns and implementing meaningful improvements can prevent dissatisfaction from escalating. One example is Wellstar Health System in Georgia. With health care facing unique stresses and safety concerns, it became crucial for Wellstar to ensure leaders were actively listening and responding to employee feedback.
“There have been a lot of safety concerns in the health care world lately. We heard things like, ‘I don't feel safe now… What are you going to do about it?’” explains Samantha Ros, director of team member engagement.
The leadership team responded by taking employee feedback seriously and initiating strategic investments in safety, in turn building trust between leaders and their people.
Strengthened trust between employees and leaders
The secret to attracting and holding onto top talent lies in relationships. Trustworthy, credible, and personable managers have a significant positive impact on employee commitment, motivation to give extra effort at work, and company culture.
Stay interviews are an opportunity for leadership to have honest, two-way conversations with their team. Trust is then built by taking action on their feedback. Through demonstrating competence and honesty, lenders earn their employees’ trust.
At typical workplaces, 57% of employees feel their manager shows a sincere interest in them. However, at the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® in 2024, 83% of people feel their manager shows a sincere interest.
Kimley-Horn landed on the 100 Best Companies list in 2024. With more than 7,500 employees, the engineering firm built trust between employers and leaders by implementing a thoughtful pay and compensation strategy across the organization.
Kimley-Horn regularly collects feedback from staff in the form of stay interviews. It’s also an opportunity for employees to ask leaders direct questions about pay structures.
How to conduct an effective stay interview
Listening is at the heart of creating a high-trust culture. Unlike an annual performance review, a stay interview is an opportunity for leadership to lean in and listen and gather candid feedback from their people.
Here are some tips to consider for conducting an effective stay interview:
● Help employees understand that stay interviews are an opportunity to create an environment where everyone feels safe and valued without reprimand. Level set expectations by sending out a calendar invite with a high-level description of the purpose of the meeting.|
● Provide any questions you want employees to reflect on in advance. Not only is it an effective use of everyone’s time, but it also gives team members the opportunity to come prepared to meet with leadership.
● Hiring people with a range of backgrounds and experiences is just the start — listening to them is what helps everyone thrive. Be thoughtful about who you interview to ensure you’re hearing the full spectrum of perspectives across your organization, from top to bottom and across departments.
● Aim to conduct stay interviews in-person or video call and keep them to 30 to 45 minutes. Choose a comfortable location to meet, whether that’s a smaller meeting room, going for coffee, or a walking meeting. Let employees lead and ask them to suggest where they’d like to meet.
● Create an environment where there is a high level of trust and transparency. Prioritize two-way communication; this is a conversation between two people to help build a better culture for all.
● Listen more than you speak and leave time to ask follow-up questions. Reflect back a summary of the feedback given and thank employees for their time and openness.
● Conduct stay interviews periodically throughout the year and ensure they’re scheduled independent of performance review season.
● Establish procedures on how leaders can act on feedback from employees and effectively follow up.
The most impactful stay interview questions to ask
Stay interview questions are going to differ, depending on your industry or type of business. However, there are common areas that all organizations can cover and gain feedback on:
Job satisfaction and engagement
Employee satisfaction is also a key driver of employee engagement, which indicates how committed people are to the company and its mission.
Ask questions that will help leaders assess job fulfillment and employee satisfaction, such as:
● What do you look forward to when you come to work each day?
● What do you like most or least about working here?
● If you could change any one part of your job, what would that be?
● What might tempt you to leave?
Growth and development
The ability to develop and grow employees is a crucial leadership trait, one of the nine high-trust leadership behaviors at the Best Workplaces™. While sometimes it’s leaders who see potential in employees that they might not see in themselves, employees can equally tell leaders what they need to grow and advance.
Stay interviews are an opportunity for leaders to get curious about their team’s career aspirations and development:
● Do you feel your knowledge, skills, and experience are being fully utilized?|
● What would you like to learn more about, within or outside of your current role?
● What would make your job more satisfying?
● Which other jobs here interest you?
Work environment and culture
Stay interviews can also reveal insights about team dynamics and company culture. A great company culture is one where employees feel seen and heard, where management is transparent, and where teams are proud and excited to work together. The result? A stronger company overall.
Here are some questions to ask about the work environment and culture:
● How would you describe our company culture to a new employee?
● What do you like or dislike about the company culture?
● How do you like to be recognized for your work?
● How is your relationship with your direct supervisor?
● How would you describe your work-life balance?
● If you could change one thing about morale, what would it be?
Employee retention and future outlook
Lack of growth opportunities or opportunities for advancement is the top reason for leaving a workplace. Look for ways to improve employee retention and explore people’s long-term career plans within the company:
● What are your long-term professional goals?
● How can we support you in attaining them?
● Are there any situations that have made you consider leaving?
● How can we support you along your career path?
● What other skills do you want to build to progress in the company?
Turning stay interview insights into action
The stay interview process doesn’t end when the meeting is over. Similar to an employee engagement survey, stay interviews are an opportunity to capture a rounded employee experience and unlock meaningful insights.
Provide a framework for managers to compile feedback received from each employee in a format that is easy to analyze and share. Identify common themes, emerging concerns, challenges, and motivators employees may have to stay or leave.
Prioritize key areas and create an action plan for improvements. Strategies can be company-wide, team-specific, or specific to each individual. Set actionable goals that are clear, obtainable, and help create a great workplace for all.
For example, if employees across the organization report feeling overworked, organizations could help address employee burnout by implementing strategies that alleviate stress. Carta is one company that took steps to cultivate a healthy work–life balance by eliminating the guilt of PTO and implementing a policy where each employee is required to take at least 15 days off a year.
If any action items were discussed during a stay meeting, leaders should prioritize addressing those needs first, take steps to implement a meaningful change, and follow up with employees so they know they’ve been seen and heard.
Common challenges in stay interviews and how to overcome them
While there are many benefits implementing face-to-face stay interviews, there are also some challenges employees and leaders could face.
Problem: Hesitancy to speak up
Let’s start with employees. A stay interview is an opportunity for employees to have their voices heard, but not everyone may fully embrace it. When people are sitting across from a senior leader they rarely interact with, it’s understandable that some would be hesitant to share feedback or fear retaliation if they do.
Solution: Psychological safety
Employees are more likely to share honestly if they feel a sense of safety. Part of conducting successful stay interviews is to foster a psychologically safe environment that encourages open communication for all.
Simon Sinek wrote about psychological safety in the workplace in his book “Leaders Eat Last.” He wrote that great leadership is about making employees feel safe so they can focus on work without fear for their own survival.
Creating a safe environment requires leaders to be vulnerable and participate in a two-way dialogue, rather than a top-down interview process. When employees feel safe, they’re more engaged, more willing to speak up and raise concerns, and far more likely to bring forward game-changing ideas.
Problem: Receiving feedback
In stay interviews, managers could receive feedback that’s difficult to hear — especially if it’s personal feedback such as their management style or hearing their direct report doesn’t feel a sense of belonging on their team.
Solution: Open and active listening
A cornerstone of any organization is building a culture of trust, the same is true for stay interviews. This is not a time to be combative and repute feedback. Managers need to come from a position of humility and curiosity, not defensiveness.
Keep the conversation constructive and positive, even if the comments made are ones you don’t agree with. Be respectful and ask follow-up questions from a place of curiosity and care to fully understand an employee’s views or concerns. Finally, view difficult feedback as an opportunity for personal growth and to implement positive change.
Take Ray Dalio, former CEO of Bridgewater, as an example. He once received an email from a colleague that said: “Ray, you deserve a D-minus for your performance today in the meeting. You did not prepare at all because there was no way you could have been that disorganized.”
Ray not only took that feedback on board, he went on to share it with more than two million viewers of his TED Talk on how to build a company where the best ideas win.
Strengthening employee retention through meaningful conversations
Stay interviews are a great tool to improve employee retention, engagement, and workplace satisfaction. Organizations that prioritize employee feedback and take action on insights from stay interviews build stronger, more resilient workplace cultures.
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