How stay interviews help combat high turnover
“Employee turnover is an incredibly expensive thing,” said Richard (Dick) Finnegan at the recent Talent Conference hosted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).
Finnegan had a no-nonsense message for HR professionals and their employers. He said one of the worst things a person can say to someone in HR is, “Turnover’s high. Go fix it.”
Leaders drive retention
Realistically speaking, HR professionals can only do so much. The only “glue” employers have, according to Finnegan, is when employees don’t want to leave their colleagues and their boss. Those bonds are hard to break.
“Leaders drive retention by building one-on-one trust with each employee,” he said. “Stay interviews are all about building trust with your team.” To reduce turnover, Finnegan said companies need to:
- Give managers retention goals to hit, and
- Do stay interviews.
“Does your boss make your day better or worse?” Finnegan pointedly added.
What to ask during a stay interview?
A stay interview is a brief conversation between an employee and their direct supervisor, an HR manager, or an objective outside third-party.
Five questions Finnegan suggested employers ask employees during a stay interview are:
- When you come to work each day, what things do you look forward to?
- What are you learning here?
- Why do you stay here?
- When was the last time you thought about leaving our team? What prompted it?
- What can I do to make your experience at work better for you?
Conclude the stay interview by thanking employees for their input and reassuring them that it will be used to facilitate efforts to improve their experience and the workplace.
Who should conduct stay interviews?
When deciding who should conduct a stay interview, be aware that when a manager or supervisor conducts the stay interview, they may not get honest feedback if there are problems involving that manager.
For an effective stay interview, employers need to get at the heart of what’s on employees’ minds.
“What do employees talk about over dinner? Their boss, colleagues, and duties,” Finnegan said.
If a company has a hunch the boss is the problem, having someone else conduct a stay interview might garner more genuine feedback.
What about exit interviews?
Many employers have heard of (or use) exit interviews to identify why employees leave the company. But there’s no reason to wait for an employee to leave before asking about those concerns; at that point, it’s too late to save the employee. That’s why stay interviews are becoming more common.
“Exit interviews are not autopsies, they’re toe tags,” said Finnegan.
Key to remember: Stay interviews can help solidify the bond between employees and their employers and help improve retention rates.