Stay Interviews – the Superpower You May Not Be Using
Holly Perryman, President and Human Resources Consultant at HR Managed, LLC
Wouldn’t it be amazing if you had the superpower of knowing what employees were thinking and then be able to act on that knowledge before it caused an issue? You could address small concerns rather than major blow-ups. Mole hills would be smoothed over before turning into mountains. Employee retention could increase, and employees would feel great about where they work. In the age of the turnover tsunami such a superpower could make all the difference.
The great news is that you have that superpower in the form of stay interviews. What is a stay interview? Stay interviews are the key to keeping your finger on the pulse of your organization. They are open, honest conversations with individual employees to hear their insights, explore concerns, and gather constructive suggestions for the workplace. Stay interviews can happen in several different ways.
- Across the board. One individual, usually HR, meets with each employee to identify trending themes across the office. These open forum conversations may cover anything from the physical workspace to benefits to work duties. Chances are, if something is bugging one person it is an area of concern for many people. Rather than letting such issues fester in break room gripe sessions, business leaders can identify and address these issues before they negatively impact the entire office.
- Start, stop, continue. Start, stop, continue interviews are a great way for top leadership to gain feedback from their direct reports. HR meets with each person to ask what they think the manager needs to start doing, stop doing, and continue doing. Feedback can be compiled in a report providing the business leader with the tools to make necessary adjustments.
- Level-up. These are stay interviews conducted by management, not HR. Each employee meets with the next level up, their manager’s manager. This type of stay interview is great for building relationships between employees and management while allowing the manager to gain insights for developing their direct reports.
Stay interviews need to be done well to be effective. Here are some ground rules for getting the most out of the process:
- Feedback must be constructive. Stay interviews are not complaint sessions. Employees are not allowed to just lob bombs of criticism; they must also be encouraged to provide suggestions for change. The greatest value in stay interview is not hearing what people don’t like, but rather, hearing what they would like to see instead.
- There must be open, honest conversation. Stay interviews are not a check-the-box process. That is not a good use of anyone’s time. The person conducting the stay interview should be a neutral person who encourages transparent, constructive dialog.
- The feedback is provided to management without names attached. People are more inclined to be honest if there is some level of confidentiality. The point of the stay interviews is to learn about themes or improve management, not to point out who said what.
- Be upfront about information that cannot be kept confidential. If you uncover an issue of harassment or unethical conduct, that information must be shared with the right individuals for an investigation. Let the person who has shared the information know up front of your obligations to act, with full assurances that their identity will only be shared with people who need to know.
- Management must be prepared to act. The one thing worse than being oblivious to issues is being made aware of the issues and then failing to act. If you are going to ask for the information you have to be prepared to handle the results. Then, follow up a few months later to make sure the action taken has resolved the issue.
Keeping a finger on the pulse of your employees is critical in maintaining a healthy, productive workforce. Stay interviews will provide a great return on the time invested. Need assistance with stay interviews? We are here for you, to manage HR while you manage your business.







