If you have been in the workforce for any amount of time, it is likely that you have participated in an exit interview, or at the very least, have heard the term. It is far less likely that you have participated in a stay interview or have even heard the term, but my hope is that this post will not only introduce you to the concept of stay interviews but motivate you to start implementing them where you work.
Exit interviews happen when someone leaves a job. They are designed to glean information from the person leaving about why they are leaving, ostensibly to learn from the conversation and implement that learning into an improved workplace. In theory, exit interviews are a great way to shed light on areas that too often remain hidden or are merely whispered about when the boss is looking the other way. In practice, they often result in very little value.
For starters, many people leave a job under less than ideal circumstances. In some cases, they leave because they are moving or want to go back to school or switch careers or are retiring, but in many other cases, they leave because there was something about their position that they did not like. Maybe they felt they were underpaid or maybe they really hated the boss. Maybe they discovered unethical or even illegal practices taking place. It could be any number of things, and regardless of the specifics, it is unlikely that these will be shared openly and honestly.
People understand that they need references and recommendations when they are applying to new jobs. They know that industries get smaller and smaller as time goes on, and they are warned not to burn bridges for fear that it will come back to bite them in the admirably-honest-but-ultimately-self-destructive butt. So instead, they are coached to leave on a good note and be as positive as they possibly can. They say what they believe the organization wants to hear and everyone goes about their day.
Secondly, even in cases when the exiter is being honest, organizations often conduct exit interviews as a formality, doing little, if anything at all with the answers they receive. HR checks off a box of having completed the interview, and the notes go into a file, never to be read again. It is a missed opportunity and it is an absolute shame.
My first recommendation is to continue conducting exit interviews, but to do so in a way that allows for the maximum benefit from the process, a process that must include the opportunity for the most transparency and honest possible. This may require a shift in your current process, potentially a large shift. Maybe you transition from conducting an in-person interview to sending out a survey. Or maybe you offer something online that is read annually so responses can be grouped and anonymous. I don’t have all of the answers just yet but there is always room to try something new. Whatever you decide, it is important that you are intentional in what you do with the results so that they may have some positive effect.
My second recommendation is to add stay interviews to your organizational menu of processes. As you have likely figured out (if you didn’t know already), stay interviews are somewhat the opposite of exit interviews, in that, instead of holding conversations to discover why people are leaving, you do so to gain a better understanding of why people stay. When done effectively, information from both of these processes can prove invaluable to your organization’s success.
Like exit interviews, it is important that you create a process for your stay interviews that allows for as much honesty and transparency as possible. After all, if people aren’t going to be honest, what’s the point? Your organizational culture must be such that your staff is comfortable sharing as openly as possible in order to gain the deepest understanding of what you are doing well and how you can do even better. Ultimately, the goal is to conduct far more stay interviews than you do exit interviews.
When you decide to start conducting stay interviews, it is important, as with everything else you do, to be intentional about the process and the outcomes. Who will conduct the interviews? How frequently will you do them? How long after a new staff has joined will you interview them? What kinds of questions will you ask? What will you do with the information once you obtain it? There are not necessarily right answers to these questions (though there are most certainly some wrong ones), but there are right answers for your organization. You may be small or big or somewhere in the middle. Your staff turnover may be extremely high or extremely low or somewhere in between. Your organization may be thriving or withering away or doing just okay. All of these will determine how you conduct your stay interviews but none of them should determine if you do.
At its core, you are trying to 1) determine why your staff are staying 2) show appreciation for your staff’s loyalty and 3) learn how to further incentivize and create an environment where people want to continue working with you. You don’t need me to tell you how costly high staff turnover rates are (but I surely will if you would like.) Stay interviews are one of many ways to show your staff you are listening and that you are committed to making their working experience a positive one.
You can use the Gallup12 as a good starting point to draft your questions. These twelve questions are research-based and help you target the major areas of employee satisfaction. They will guide you to discover where you are effectively supporting your staff and where there is room for improvement. Remember as you craft your questions that you get better answers when you ask better questions. Dig a little deeper than, on a scale of 1-10, how happy are you? Some ideas are:
- What has made you most proud this past year?
- How do you think you best contribute to our mission?
- When do you feel most energized in your work?
- What was a time you felt most supported in your work?
- Who would you like to shout out at the organization?
- What would allow you to do your job better?
- If you were the boss for a day, what would you do differently?
- What prevents this from being the perfect job for you?
- How can we best show our appreciation to you?
- What is not being said that needs to be said?
Whatever process you design and whatever questions you come up with, I hope you commit to 1) improving your exit interview process and 2) implementing a stay interview process. Like everything else, the quality of your results will depend on the quality of your commitment, vision and execution. Happy interviewing!
One Response