When it comes to recording the level of employee satisfaction, employers generally rely on the responses recorded from “Exit Interviews.” However, by the time you act upon it, one of your talented employees is already gone. How about marching towards a better option to record employee satisfaction?
“Stay Interviews” can come to your rescue!
But, what is a Stay Interview? What is the purpose of a stay interview?
Let us understand.
The Power of Stay Interviews for Engagement and Retention
One usually assumes that an employer uses these interviews to convince the employee to stay in the organization. However, the reality is poles apart.
A Stay Interview helps an employer determine why a highly talented employee chooses to continue working in your organization. It is advisable to prepare a discussion guide on how to answer stay interview questions to draw essential insights. These interviews help an employer interact with a star-performing employee to understand the challenges they face and what they expect from the organization.
There is a difference between an Exit interview and a Stay Interview. An Exit Interview’s responses allow learning from the mistakes. A Stay Interview helps resolve recurring problems that may lead a talented employee to walk out of the organization. Stay Interviews also build trust between the employer and the employee, and the latter feels valued.
Who Should Take these Interviews, and How?
You must be wondering about the stay interview action plan template now, right?
Ideally, the higher management must decide who should conduct a stay interview to avoid biases while recording responses. These interviews are crucial. But, when to conduct a stay interview?
Ideally, each year must have at least 1-2 Stay Interviews annually to record employee behavior towards the company.
Are Stay Interviews applicable to new joinees?
Yes, they are. New joinees’ responses hold equal importance as they are either experienced with different organization/s or are fresh graduates.
Concerning the latter, their dissatisfaction will lead them to walk out of the company and restrict applications from their college or friends group. The same case can occur with experienced employees too. New hires’ interviews must happen once in 90 days.
But, as an employer, you cannot ask any random question to your talent pool. So, what must be your stay interview process so that you capture the correct insight to work? Here is a list of stay interview questions for managers to ask employees.
Stay Interview for Employees: Question Palette
What is one of the most loved activities of yours in a day at the organization?
These responses will give a sneak-peak about employees’ views on the organization’s environment and culture.
Have you ever had a situation in the organization where you felt it was time to put in your papers?
A very straightforward question to the employees’ asking about their experience in the organization.
If your friend wants to change their job, how likely are you to recommend our organization?
This question will help in determining the level of satisfaction of the employee with the organization.
What aspects of your job would you like to eliminate?
This question asks the employee about those aspects that they dislike.
Do you think that the organization is not making the best out of your talents?
This question will yield responses that will help you, as an employer, analyze how to make the best use of the employees.
Do you feel that your current job roles and responsibilities are specified clearly to you?
Here, the managers play a vital role as they are the ones who set and convey the roles and responsibilities to others. If you draw unsatisfactory responses, ask your managers the issue related to this and seek tangible solutions.
According to you, has the company provided you with adequate Learning and Development opportunities?
A question that helps you understand the employee’s views on the growth opportunities offered by the organization. This prime question must be on your list of stay interview questions.
Do you feel that your efforts and hard work are recognized and valued by the organization?
Recognition is an integral part of job satisfaction. When one feels that their efforts are recognized and rewarded fairly by the organization, they would hardly wish to switch.
Is the organization offering you enough to do your job effectively and efficiently?
This stay interview question helps you understand whether you lag in providing facilities and information to your employees, leading to dissatisfaction.
What do you wish the organization added or deleted from the premises?
The organizational environment plays a vital role in the retention of talented employees. Since the objective is to get insights from Stay interview questions for further improvement, this question will help understand what to do to increase job satisfaction.
What changes would you like to recommend, overall?
This question will help understand how to build a conducive work environment for present and future employees.
What are the Benefits of Stay Interviews?
Most of the time, one may feel that there is no purpose for these interview responses, and these interviews are a pure waste of time. However, the stay Interviews improve the rate of retention of the organization.
Here are some benefits of stay interviews:
- Help understand why employees wish to continue working with your organization
- Help in retaining high-performing employees in the organization
- Builds the trust of the employee towards the employer
- Help in understanding problems at an early stage and in rectifying them
- Helps in identifying the health of the organizational culture
- Supports the managers in developing better training programs, R&R programs, and clear roles and responsibilities
- A “value for money” way of solving problems
So wait no more, start preparing your set of stay interview questions, set up a schedule with your employees, and start drawing valuable insights that can help build a better organizational culture.
