Stay Interviews: Best Practices to Apply, Questions to Ask, Sample Template to Follow

No matter the industry, losing great talent is one of the toughest challenges for leaders and employees. Not only is there the question of trying to fill that person’s role, but the associated work of training and onboarding a new team member, plus the potential for disruption to the business and added work for those who remain.

In some organizations, when departures are widespread, the challenges are naturally greater – and even harder to overcome.

This is why renewed attention is being paid to employee engagement and retention inside many organizations today, and why the concept of the “stay interview” is gaining more traction.

What is a Stay Interview?

A stay interview is a regularly scheduled one-on-one meeting between an employee and a manager to check in on the employee’s overall satisfaction with the job and any questions, concerns, or feedback the employee may have related to the role.

When done well, stay interviews identify any problems or needs early so adjustments can be made to better engage employees and improve job satisfaction.

What Are the Key Benefits of Stay Interviews?

The most obvious benefit is that stay interviews can help employees stay at the company, feel happier about their jobs, and more excited to come to work. The following key benefits break it all down in more detail:

1. More opportunity for honest feedback and candor on how things are really going.

These days, people aren’t just leaving their jobs because of the paycheck. Many leave because they don’t feel appreciated or connected to the organization and its purpose. Showing genuine interest in your team and how they’re doing, asking the right questions, and listening with an open head and heart can go a long way to reinforce why employees should stay.

To get there, leaders need to dig deeper to get a real sense of the truth. Find out what’s going well, what any sources of frustration are, what gets them excited about work, and how they feel about their role and contribution to the company. Don’t settle for “I’m fine.” If you can get to the root of any issues or opportunities, you can get a better handle on how to solve them together.

When done well, stay interviews can put the need for “exit interviews” out of business.

2. Better communication channels – and relationships – between employees and managers.

Employees are extremely disengaged today, and yet their managers don’t seem to get it. According to a recent research study we conducted with The Harris Poll, more than 75% of employees and 63% of managers report feeling burned out or ambivalent in their current position. Yet managers aren't recognizing just how overwhelmed their employees feel, with 89% saying their employees are thriving compared to the actual thriving figure of 24%. That's more than a 3-to-1 discrepancy.

For employees who say they are thriving, the top indicator is a manager who is “invested in their success.”

This points to the stay interview as a key tool for helping managers get a true sense for how their employees feel. Jon Clifton, CEO of Gallup, has done extensive research on employee burnout and agrees managers, and better manager communication, are the keys to solving employee disengagement.

“The real fix is this simple: better leaders in the workplace,” Clifton wrote. “Managers need to be better listeners, coaches, and collaborators. Great managers help colleagues learn and grow, recognize their colleagues for doing great work, and make them feel truly cared about. In environments like this, workers thrive.”

3. Save organizations countless dollars in recruiting and onboarding costs.

The top three business impacts of employee burnout include high turnover, low engagement/lost productivity, and lower profitability. In one recent Harris Poll survey, 33% of hiring managers predict higher employee turnover in 2024.

Furthermore, employees who are not engaged or actively disengaged cost the world $8.8 trillion in lost productivity, according to Gallup's State of the Global Workplace: 2023 Report. Gallup has also consistently found that companies with highly engaged employees are more profitable and achieve other key business outcomes, including greater productivity, less absenteeism and turnover, and fewer safety incidents and quality defects.

Best Practices for Effective Stay Interviews

There are some key ways to get the most out of stay interviews. Follow these best practices to help set you up for success:

1. Share the purpose of the meeting and the good intentions behind it. Ensure that employees know you are sincere in wanting to see how they are doing, that you are not looking to evaluate their performance during your conversation, and that you’re committed to supporting them.
2. Set a tone of openness and candor to establish trust. Help the employee see through your body language and demeanor that you are sincere about wanting to support them and believe in the partnership.
3. As a leader, be prepared to listen a lot more than you speak. The focus of this meeting needs to be on the employee. It’s not the leader’s opportunity to discuss strategy or tactics.
4. Separate the process from the performance review. Try to schedule stay interviews many months apart from performance reviews so there’s no connection to the process.
5. Schedule relatively brief meetings. Stay interviews should be roughly 30 minutes in length. Ensure that the employee knows ahead of time the purpose of the meeting is to just check in.
6. Consider scheduling bi-annually. If possible, make stay interviews a twice-annual process, depending on the size of the team and the needs of employees and the business.
7. Ask many open-ended questions. Open-ended questions are designed for employees to share honest feelings.
8. Recap what was shared. And, promise to offer feedback or action when changes are possible.
9. Invite employees to request additional meetings. Employees should know that the conversation doesn’t need to end if additional needs surface.
10. Look for trends in employee feedback during stay interviews. Try to schedule them around the same time so you can act on trends or collective concerns that multiple employees share.

Stay Interview Template

The best communications are planned and often follow a framework. Use this template below to prepare for your stay interviews, map key talking points, and establish your follow-up plan.

Stay Interview Potential Questions

Based on our experience working with clients and our own teams, we’re sharing a potential list of effective stay interview questions. Naturally, not all questions need to be asked in one 30-minute setting, but we’ve provided a variety of questions that may be applied over time or used based on what new areas are especially helpful to explore for specific team members.

Strong Overall Questions for First Stay Interview

• Is there anything pressing on your mind that you’d like to share with me to start?
• What’s going well with your role today? In other words, what do you like most about your job?
• What’s one thing you would like to change about your role/your biggest frustration right now?
• How do you think I might better support you so you can be even more fulfilled in your role?
• What are your future career goals?

Areas of Personal Strength

• What’s one thing that you think you’re doing really well that I might not recognize (or your team members might not see as well)?
• What personal or work skills have always been part of your toolbox that you are not applying in your work here?
• If I were to ask friends or family, what would they say are your biggest strengths?

Company Culture

• How would you describe your work/life balance in your role today? What can be done to improve the balance?
• How would you describe the overall company culture today?
• What pain points would you identify that we need to fix in the culture?
• If you asked the average employee on your team today, what do you think they’d say were the top things we need to fix right now?
• How do you like to be recognized for good work? How am I doing in recognizing your work and what could I do better?

Overall Areas for Team/Company Improvement

• What else am I missing when you think about what needs to be done to make our team and your work experience stronger?
• Are there any things about your work experience today that – if not addressed – might cause you to consider new opportunities?
• What are the leaders in our company doing well and what could they do better?

Future Goals

• How would you like to grow and develop in your career today?
• What do you feel is next for you?
• If you could snap your fingers and have a totally new role tomorrow, what would it be?

Possible Closing Question

• Is there anything more you’d like to add about your current work experience that you think I should know?
• Is there anything else I can do to support you better and keep you happy and engaged?

A Way to Level Up Your Stay Interviews

We’ve discussed stay interviews as a bi-annual or yearly practice as that’s what’s often seen in business and is certainly practical and well-advised. Yet for organizations to do an even better job of connecting with their employees, stay interviews should be just one part of the overall communication landscape.

For small to medium-sized teams, direct managers should set aside one-on-one check-ins monthly or quarterly that are similar to the stay interview, with the opportunity to ask open-ended questions and offer employees the chance to share what’s on their minds – both positive and negative.

These check-ins are the heart of great communication. When they are scheduled as part of the normal routine, employees see that their managers genuinely prioritize regular communication. They also give leaders a chance to be real and human with their team members. When managers get to know their employees on a personal level, they build trust.

I believe so strongly in the power of being more human as you lead that it was the theme of my latest leadership book, Heart First. I define “Heart First” leadership as championing empathy, humanity, and authenticity to build stronger, more trusting relationships and a thriving, purpose-driven organization.

After all, nothing really important gets done without genuine relationships, buy-in, trust, and support from your full team.

And, of course, all of that starts with building relationships through better communication. Stay interviews – and regular check-ins – are all a vital part of that process.

One of the first things that come to mind when I think about Heart First is many of the frank conversations I had with CEOs and other leaders of organizations for my book. Just after the pandemic began, leaders shared that their understanding of what it took to be a great leader was clearly put to the test – not only during the pandemic but in the ensuing social and political unrest.

Leaders said that until that period, there was a sense that they always needed to have the answers and put on a strong face no matter what challenges came their way. The pandemic tested that thinking a bit, and they began to see the power in being more authentic, sharing what they didn’t know, and being ok with asking for help in solving big challenges.

Along the way, they also discarded the masks we all tend to put on going to work. Many leaders also grew a deep appreciation for employees doing the same. In the end, this push for more humanity was seen by many as uniquely powerful in building more solid, genuine relationships, the kind that can make a lasting difference in the culture of any organization.

Pitfalls to Avoid in Stay Interviews

In our work, we’ve seen common pitfalls leaders often make in communicating with employees. Here’s some of the biggest mistakes to avoid:

1. Don’t overpromise and under-deliver. Leaders should be clear with employees that not all problems can be solved through a stay interview. They are designed to check in, gather feedback, and build relationships of support. Sometimes employee concerns can’t be solved right away, or employees may miss the context behind decisions. Employees need to understand that going in.
2. Emphasize confidentiality. Employees should feel what they share won’t be repeated unless they want it to be.
3. Avoid connecting the stay interview to the performance review. The surest way to kill genuine conversation is having someone feel they are being evaluated based on what they share.
4. Don’t ask closed questions. The question “Is everything going well with you?” is likely to be answered with, “Yes, all is fine.” A better question is, “What’s going well, and what needs to be improved?” The latter question invites employees to discuss areas for improvement.
5. Ensure that you follow up on any open items. If a pressing issue was identified, employees deserve to know what the leader’s response is to the concern. That doesn’t mean the issue has to be resolved. As a follow-up to the meeting, the leader may respond in a variety of ways, including:
   • Stating that the concern has been heard and is being taken into consideration
   • Sharing that something is being done and offering specifics on any actions
   • Explaining why changes or actions may not be feasible or possible while sharing appreciation for the employee’s candor and openness in bringing the concern forward

Remember that as a leader, you obviously can’t resolve all the issues that an employee brings to you. But letting them know you’ve heard them and you are doing what you can goes a long way to building trust and engagement.

How The Grossman Group Can Help

The Grossman Group team is a seasoned group of internal communications experts with years of experience advising Fortune 100 companies. We’ve worked with thousands of leaders from various industries to become better leaders and communicators who expertly engage their teams.

Stay interviews are one piece of the bigger puzzle of helping leaders maximize the potential for better communication and a stronger culture. At its finest, internal communication significantly impacts business performance, and we’ve been proud partners in that work.

To get support on building your culture, driving engagement, and improving communication, contact us today.

Final Thoughts

While stay interviews got a lot of attention during the “Great Resignation,” they have always been a highly effective and timeless tool for leaders committed to building an outstanding employee culture. As the old saying goes, employees leave managers, not companies.

Naturally, managers who take the time to get to know their employees on a personal level build trust. And that trust can go a long way toward creating stronger and more successful teams.

How might conducting stay interviews support building an engaged culture, driving lower turnover, and improving the performance of your organization?

—David Grossman

This guide addresses essential strategies to create a high-performing workplace where culture drives success and employees are engaged and motivated. Click below to download your free copy of our eBook, Guide to Organizational Culture Change, today!