Your Key to Retention: The “Stay” Interview

Each year, the Gallup organization measures employee engagement by asking random samples of workers about specific workplace elements such as profitability, productivity, customer service, retention, safety, and overall wellbeing. Gallup’s report for 2021 shows that, for the first time in a decade, employee engagement has fallen.

This should be a signal to you, as a practice leader, to add the “stay interview” to your toolkit of approaches to employee retention. You can conduct the interview or, better yet, assign it to your employee’s direct supervisor.

Adopt a casual and conversational manner:

I’d like to have an informal talk with you to find out how the job is going so I can do my best to support you as your manager, particularly with issues within my control.

Pick and choose from questions like these:

• What do you look forward to when you come to work each day?
• What do you like most or least about working here?
• What keeps you working here?
• If you could change something about your job, what would that be?
• What would make your job more satisfying?
• How do you like to be recognized?
• What talents are not being used in your current role?
• What would you like to learn here?
• What motivates (or demotivates) you?
• What can I do to best support you?
• What can I do more of or less of as your manager?
• What might tempt you to leave?

The important part, of course, is to act on your employee’s feedback. Asking the questions, then doing nothing with the responses, will put you on the road to the exit interview that you wanted to avoid in the first place.