Why these experts say stay interviews are a good HR practice

Only interviewing employees when they’re entering or exiting your organization could be why some retention efforts are lacking.

Instead, HR pros may want to consider conducting stay interviews, or regular, one-on-one conversations with staff to gauge their experience at work. Some 27% of HR leaders say they use stay interviews as part of their retention strategy, according to a 2022 Paychex survey.

“You want to convince that person to stay within the organization, because you see them as a valued asset to the organization,” said Trevor Bogan, regional director for the Top Employers Institute, a global HR certification company.

Nuts and bolts. Stay interviews should be conducted on an annual basis, Bogan said. When creating a stay interview strategy, HR should personalize each conversation so employees know their voices are being heard.

“[Stay interviews] can be a really important retention tool,” Sherri Manning, CPO for restaurant company Olo, said. “For most companies that doesn’t mean sitting down with every employee who works for you, but having a plan to triage how you sequence that maybe by looking at top performers or long service folks.”

Stay interviews need to get to the heart of the employee experience. HR pros should ask employees detailed questions about how they feel about the organization and work environment, what they look forward to each day, and whether they’re satisfied in their role.

“Any of those things are potentially making someone want to jump to another organization,” Bogan said. “Ask more of those personal questions, identify a root cause, and then be able to pivot and make sure [you] have solutions for the employee.”

HR should also ask about benefits, including what their employees are using and what they want. How employees respond can shed light on their stressors outside of work, giving HR the opportunity to provide relief through new benefits and enhancements to existing benefits so workers can bring their full attention to work.

Takeaway. The information collected through annual stay interviews can help HR pros better connect with their workforce, while improving engagement, culture, and employee well-being, Bogan said. All of which can have a positive impact on recruiting and retention.

Some 47% of employees seeking a new position cite company culture as their reason for wanting to leave, data from Haillo, an employee communications platform, shows.

“They need to focus on wider employee engagement, which should no longer be considered a ‘nice to have’ or an intangible HR concept,” Toby Fowlston, CEO for London-based global recruiting firm Robert Walters Group, told Sage.com. “Engagement drives motivation, commitment and productivity, and employers need to appreciate its impact on the bottom line.”