The Stay Interview

Stay interviews must be positive engagement-and-retention-building activities.

Avoid falling into the trap of thinking that if something is important to you, then it must be important to everybody, whether it’s pay, promotions, or something else.

That might even be counterproductive because it suggests to your employees that you have better things to do, you don’t care about the outcomes, and you have little regard for them. What a way to turn a potential win into a huge loss.

After all, if you want to know how to get employees to stay and work harder, you have to go ask them, because they are the only ones who know.

Stay interviews provide the insight to know rather than have to assume if each employee fits correctly, is motivated to give 100 percent, and has intentions to stick around.

Besides, you would never treat your customers with excuses like the ones above, and certainly your employees are as important as your customers if not more so.

I know you’ll invest yourself wholeheartedly. Besides, yo

he fine print, though, reveals that the rankings are weighted mostly by how much employees trust their managers.

cannot do everything but I will do whatever I can . . . and I will stretch my creativity and push upstream if necessary to support any smart, useful idea if it makes you more engaged in your work and you stay here longer.”

which enabled you to accept the shortcomings of the best while you were blinded to the strengths of the worst.