In today’s competitive job market, retaining top talent is more challenging than ever. While exit interviews provide insight into why employees leave, they come too late to retain valued employees. Enter the stay interview—a proactive approach to understanding and addressing employee needs before they decide to move on.
What Is a Stay Interview?
A stay interview is a structured conversation between a manager and an employee aimed at uncovering what keeps the employee engaged and what might cause them to leave. Unlike performance reviews, which focus on past performance, stay interviews are forward-looking, concentrating on employee satisfaction and retention.
Why Are Stay Interviews Important?
The significance of stay interviews has grown in recent years. Recent research indicates 27% of HR decision-makers use stay interviews as part of their retention strategy. Reporting by the U.S. BLS indicates February 2025 quits totaled over 3 million. According to Gallup, depending on the role, replacing each employee will cost 40% – 200% of the employee’s salary. With the high cost of turnover and considering 42% of employees who left their jobs believed their manager or company could have done something to prevent their separation, stay interviews could provide hope of retaining employees and saving on recruitment and training expenses.
Beyond cost savings, stay interviews build trust with employees who feel valued when management seeks their feedback and acts on it, resulting in higher job satisfaction. Creating a work environment steeped in open communication and trust may just head off many of the negative behaviors, such as quiet quitting, on the rise in today’s workplaces.
How to Conduct Effective Stay Interviews
- Schedule Regularly: Conduct stay interviews annually or bi-annually to keep a pulse on employee sentiment.
- Create a Comfortable Environment: Ensure the setting is private and informal to encourage open dialogue.
- Ask Open-Ended Questions: Examples include: What do you enjoy most about your job? What would make your work experience better? Have you considered leaving the company, and if so, why?
- Listen Actively: Show genuine interest in the employee’s feedback without interrupting or becoming defensive.
- Act: Implement feasible suggestions and communicate any changes made as a direct result of the interview.
Implementing Stay Interviews in Your Organization
In order to successfully integrate stay interviews into your employee retention strategy, it is important to approach the process with both structure and empathy. One of the most critical steps is to train your managers. Because stay interviews can touch on deeply personal or sensitive workplace concerns, training should cover techniques like active listening, building psychological safety, and asking open-ended, non-leading questions. According to SHRM, managers who receive stay interview training are more likely to engage in productive conversations that generate actionable feedback, helping employees feel heard and supported.
Next, standardize the stay interview process across the organization. While each conversation should allow room for natural dialogue, using a consistent framework helps ensure fairness and makes it easier to identify company-wide trends. Experts from Lattice recommend developing a uniform set of core questions and a process that includes scheduling, documentation, and follow-up procedures. This consistency builds trust among employees and provides HR with measurable insights to guide organizational improvements.
Lastly, organizations must monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of stay interviews. The goal is retention, so it is crucial to ask whether employees are staying longer, and whether managers are acting on feedback. Businesses that actively evaluate their employee engagement efforts, including stay interviews, report stronger retention metrics and higher morale. Organizations should analyze feedback trends, track turnover rates, and adjust their approach based on what is working. Over time, this evaluation process transforms stay interviews into a strategic retention initiative.
Stay interviews are a valuable tool in the quest to retain top talent. By proactively engaging with employees and addressing their concerns, organizations can foster a more committed and satisfied workforce.
Is your employee retention program a work in progress? Follow these steps to bolster your program and contact Peoplelink today to strengthen your workforce!