In a post-pandemic job market ripe with high-volume turnover, fierce competition for top talent, and massive skill shortages, it’s never been more important for employers to anticipate and facilitate the needs of their employee base before they’re two feet out the door.
Enter stay interviews, the latest and greatest employee engagement tool helping organizations gain a better understanding of the reasons why their employees are choosing to stay with the business.
While the exit interview falls short in helping support active employee engagement efforts, the stay interview offers organizations a ton of powerful benefits if done well.
Here’s 6 reasons why you should be using stay interviews with your current employee base:
Six Reasons Why You Should Be Using Stay Interviews
1. They’re a proactive approach to employee retention.
Stay interviews give organizations the opportunity to get ahead of workforce issues before they become significant enough to threaten your workforce, putting employers in a powerful position to rectify and repair problem areas within the business to better suit valued employees.
2. They support valuable employee feedback loops.
Arguably less procedural than the exit interview, stay interviews can be as informal as a one-on-one chat with team members individually, and are rooted in the opportunity for employees to give you valuable feedback. Similar to pulse surveys, stay interviews can be conducted as much as is required within your organization, and regular follow-ups will help ensure that two-way feedback and communication is being regularly practiced between management and employees.
3. They encourage relationship building within the organization.
Simply conducting a stay interview isn’t a guarantee that this engagement strategy will work. This tool is all about relationship building, and both employee and employer must come willing to fully participate.
For employees, they must have trust in the process to provide open, honest feedback. Consider too that employees may not feel comfortable divulging sensitive information to people they work closely alongside or directly report to. To achieve best results, plan for a designated third party like an internal or external HR partner, or someone who is not a direct manager or part of the executive team.
For employers, a commitment to properly documenting issues discussed, and acting on next steps will demonstrate to employees that you value their input and their place within the company.
4. They help you identify problematic patterns and trends within your workforce.
A major benefit to conducting proactive interviews with current employees is the ability to identify both positive and negative patterns within your workforce. Are there a number of employees all considering leaving for a specific reason? Is there one thing that is the differentiating factor in why employees are willing to stay? Using information provided within your interviews can help you better leverage positives and eliminate negative elements affecting employee satisfaction.
5. They can give you a leg up in attracting talent similar to your top performing employees.
While it’s absolutely true that no two employees are alike, knowing what works for your top performing, high-potential, and longest-standing employees can help organizations identify the differentiating factors that help set them apart from other potential employers for candidates of the same caliber.
6. They’re a cost effective solution for employee turnover.
Both employee turnover and ongoing recruitment efforts are costly for any business. The stay interview is a cheap and easy solution for any organization to implement in an effort to identify, understand, and manage the challenges and opportunities that exist within the business.
Remember that a stay interview isn’t about convincing your employees to stay, but rather about gaining insights from existing employees, making them feel seen, heard and looked after. Being proactive, rather than reactive can make all the difference in employee retention, both in the short and long-term.
