key areas | engage & reward | stay interviews | getting started
Getting Started
When considering whether to conduct stay interviews, keep in mind that other options, such as administering a survey, can be used to gather information. While both methods lead to employee feedback, their purposes, benefits and limitations are different.
Determine an approach that fits your culture.
Create a shared understanding of why you are conducting stay interviews. Key messaging should include how much employee feedback and input is valued in your organization.
Culture: Is the current culture one in which there is trust between supervisors and employees? If some level of distrust exists, consider who would be best suited to facilitate the interviews.
Participation: While stay interviews are intended for employees you wish to retain, would the involvement of a subset of employees create “othering” or a feeling of exclusion for those not involved? If so, can multiple strategies be used to ensure all employees have a means of providing feedback?
Terminology: How will you reference the interviews? Using the formal term “stay interview” is not essential and may cause confusion to employees. Ultimately, you are meeting with employees to learn what you can do to make this a great place for them to work.
Establish measures of success.
Set a goal such as increased retention rate or employee engagement.
Collect relevant baseline data and determine method of monitoring results.
To calculate return on investment (ROI), track the time and expenses spent conducting stay interviews and analyzing the responses. Compare your expenses to the savings/benefits obtained from the stay interviews (e.g. reduced recruitment, hiring, and onboarding expenses).
Identify interviewees & interviewers.
Interviewees should be employees you want to retain. Consider:
Who are the most effective, influential, or high-potential staff members?
Which high-performers are a flight-risk to leave?
Are there employee populations that are historically difficult to recruit or retain?
Interviewers should be someone the employee trusts and who can elicit authentic feedback. Usually this is their supervisor.
Select stay interview questions.
Choose up to 5 questions along with related probing questions to help spark the interviewee’s thinking. Sample questions are provided in this resource.
Realize that the employee will set the agenda for the interview and the supervisor is simply the facilitator with a guided plan.
If you want to be able to identify trends, you will need to stay consistent with the interview questions asked across interviewees.
Prepare the interviewers.
Create a shared understanding and consistent approach among interviewers. Clarify purpose and goals for the stay interviews.
Walk through the interview questions and probing questions. Reinforce the importance of consistency in the questions asked to employees, and the importance of the probing questions to uncover authentic, emotional reasons.
If stay interviews are a new concept for the supervisors, consider a cascade approach from the top down to allow for supervisors to be interviewed prior to interviewing others.
Practice with scenarios and/or role play to ensure supervisors actively listen, avoid being defensive during interviews, and anticipate difficult topics that may be brought up. This handout includes helpful guidance with tips to help you practice.
Identify a comfortable location for conducting interviews. Examples:
A common meeting room or other quiet space.
The employee’s office or classroom.
If the supervisor’s office is the best option, the supervisor should avoid sitting behind their desk or similar set-ups that elicit a power dynamic.
Schedule interviews.
Decide when the interviews will take place. Wait until the end of the first quarter or long enough into the school year to develop relationships, while still ensuring there is enough time in the school year to implement changes that address employees’ feedback.
Draft and send invitations to applicable employees. Focus on the purpose for the conversation and briefly address the format so they know what to expect. You can reference this sample language to help you prepare.
Note: Do not send questions to employees ahead of time as the goal is to elicit authentic feedback directly from a face-to-face conversation.
If conducting multiple interviews in the same day, allow enough time in between each interview in case they extend past their allotted time, and to allow time to complete notetaking.
Stay on schedule and avoid interruptions during interviews. Unplug from other activities and take notes throughout so the employee knows they have your complete focus.