I had not heard of the stay interview until a friend sent over a link. The idea is that rather than waiting until they leave to diagnose what went wrong, you do periodic interviews to find out how they are doing and encourage them to stay. I’m interested in this from a management perspective, and handicapped having never had one or done one, so I’m looking for insight – anyone tried this? Found it useful?
I’ll go big and share what I think now, from an uninformed perspective. My first thought was…isn’t that what you should be doing during an annual review? Finding out if an employee is happy, what they want to do for the next year, if they are bored, restless, mad, etc? My second thought was that done wrong, it could easily seem like management looking for the weak links. Thinking about leaving? Good, we can make that happen!
I think most managers and employees look at annual reviews primary as the time for salary adjustments, and it’s common to talk about nothing else except that. Adding a happiness block to the review form might help (and not dumb to do that). Still, I think the focus of the review is rarely holistic.
Where I think it gets interesting is if someone else did the stay interview. Maybe the next level manager? Don’t think it would work if it was a peer manager (politics), and not sure if someone from HR would work – they could ask the questions, but would they get the subtleties? More important, if they talk to anyone except their direct manager and express any kind of unhappiness, won’t they worry about that going back to their manager? That is the point after all, but that could get awkward in a lot of ways.
Or would it be more interesting to send out a annual survey? Are you paid fairly? Have you considered leaving for a bigger challenge, more money, less stress?
I feel like I’m in a loop. If you have trust between manager and employee then I’m not sure you need this. If you don’t have trust, I’m not sure it works!
So, I think I see value in the effort, but the application of it, just not sure.
SQLAndy 
Andy, I would tend to agree with you on this. I’m in the same position having never done an official stay interview but have accomplished some of the same objective by building a relationship with my team members, and in particular, occasionally talking with them one-on-one “off the record” like going out to a nearby Starbucks for a coffee break chat. Those conversations help build the trust between us, and hopefully they’ll be honest with me about how things are going. I think they will be at least as honest with me after we build that relationship as they would be with anyone else conducting a formal stay interview that does not have that relationship with them.
I would also argue that this is what a good manager should be doing all the time, not just during annual reviews or some other calendar event. Also fully agree regarding the perils if this is done wrong. It’s like the argument about being irreplacable. Some people think if they are the only one who knows how to do something that they can’t be fired or laid-off. I argue that if you’re the only one who knows how to do something, I can’t let you go on vacation or promote you. And the last couple of years have proven that being the only one who knows something is NOT a shield against being laid-off.
You really got me thinking with this…I’ll have to blog a few more detailed thoughts in the near future.
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Andy, I would tend to agree with you on this. I’m in the same position having never done an official stay interview but have accomplished some of the same objective by building a relationship with my team members, and in particular, occasionally talking with them one-on-one “off the record” like going out to a nearby Starbucks for a coffee break chat. Those conversations help build the trust between us, and hopefully they’ll be honest with me about how things are going. I think they will be at least as honest with me after we build that relationship as they would be with anyone else conducting a formal stay interview that does not have that relationship with them.
I would also argue that this is what a good manager should be doing all the time, not just during annual reviews or some other calendar event. Also fully agree regarding the perils if this is done wrong. It’s like the argument about being irreplacable. Some people think if they are the only one who knows how to do something that they can’t be fired or laid-off. I argue that if you’re the only one who knows how to do something, I can’t let you go on vacation or promote you. And the last couple of years have proven that being the only one who knows something is NOT a shield against being laid-off.
You really got me thinking with this…I’ll have to blog a few more detailed thoughts in the near future.
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Thanks for the comment, looking forward to seeing your post on your thoughts.
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