A large percentage of organisations use exit interviews but how many have stay interviews? Why wait for a top performer to leave you before engaging in a meaningful conversation with them? As a leader, wouldn’t you like to get a deeper insight as to what makes your top performers tick?
Dr John Sullivan is a prolific writer and a regular visitor to Australia to share his ideas on staffing and people management issues. Dr Sullivan posted an article in December last year where he provided a list of 20 possible questions you should consider asking at a stay interview.
He broke the questions into a number of categories. He suggests you commence the conversation by exploring the factors that makes the person want to stay with you. Some questions he provided include:
- What are the factors which cause you to enjoy your current role?
- If you have ever been asked by a friend, what reasons have you given them to explain why you want to stay with us?
- Do you feel that your work makes a difference to us? Do you feel it has a noticeable impact on the people we serve?
- Do you feel “fully utilised” in your role? Are there additional things that we can do to more fully use your talents?
- Do your colleagues and teammates listen to you and value your ideas and input?
The next stage of the interview moves to identifying ways to increase the person’s loyalty and commitment, with questions such as:
- If you were to manage yourself, what would you do differently, that I, as your current manager, don’t currently do?
- What factors would you miss most if you transferred to a completely different job?
- Are there any frustration factors that keep you up at night, that enter your mind while coming to work?
- If you were given the opportunity to redesign your role, what would be the key factors that you would alter?
- What are your career progression expectations and where you would like to be in our organisation two years from now?
- Are there actions that we can take to further challenge and stretch you?
- Can you highlight any recent recognition that you received that increased your levels of commitment?
- Can you highlight for me your positive experiences in the area of learning and development?
Finally Dr Sullivan suggests you attempt to identify any “triggers” that may cause the person to leave and provides questions such as:
- What kind of “triggers” might cause you to start looking for a role elsewhere?
- Think back to a time in the past 12 months when you have been frustrated or anxious about your role. Can you tell me the frustration factor or factors that most contributed to this anxiety? What eventually happened to lower the frustration level?
- If you’ve had conversations with other employees who have considered leaving or who have actually left us, did any of the reasons that they provided for leaving cause you to at least partially nod in agreement?
- What are the prime factors that caused you to leave your last two jobs? Are there factors from your previous jobs that you hope you will never have to experience again while you are with us?
You can read Dr Sullivan’s full article by clicking here.
Also read related article on ‘fast tracking your career by eliminating your silos‘.