How to Run Effective Stay Interviews

[00:00:00] Most of us find out why people leave after they've already resigned and it's too late. A stay interview asks questions while you can still do something about it, but importantly, the value actually depends on whether you take action. Hi, I'm Andrea Adams. This is The HR Hub, and today I'm talking with Julianne Prezant. Julie is the founder and president of OptiPeople Resources in Chicago, a fractional HR and talent firm,

[00:00:28] and she spent more than 30 years building people systems for growing companies across all kinds of industries. Hi, Julie. How are you? I'm good. How are you, Andrea? I'm good. I'm good. I'm looking forward to this. Yeah. All right. So we're going to be talking about stay interviews. So why would you say we should conduct stay interviews instead of exit interviews?

[00:00:56] I mean, of course, I've already hinted at it in the intro, but anyways, I want to hear it from you. And how do you decide what you're going to do with what you hear? It's a good question. And I don't know that I would do stay interviews instead of exit interviews. I would actually do both. Okay. Okay. All right. Fair enough. But still. Okay. What's the value?

[00:01:22] The value is understanding trends, understanding what people are feeling and experiencing. Companies continue to go through a tremendous amount of change. You know, the key is you have to be willing to listen and you have to be willing to hear things that maybe you weren't expecting. But by doing it while somebody's there, it gives you an opportunity to make that decision.

[00:01:50] It also gives you the opportunity to identify trends within a department, within a function, within a company, within a time period. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. I think they're very valuable. We can't do stay interviews with everyone all the time. So, who should do them? When should we do them? It's another good question.

[00:02:14] So, I think what's important is you have to have trust with the person that you're willing to talk to. So, I, as an employee, I'm going to be open with someone that I trust. So, it's not that I don't trust my manager, but I'm not comfortable telling my manager everything. Right? In a lot of organizations, it can be HR.

[00:02:41] In a lot of places, we'll hire somebody from the outside to conduct stay interviews, to get a better idea of what the culture really is like, what the organization is experiencing, what their people are experiencing. I do this with a lot of my clients and be able to sort of see, you know, kind of what's going on that maybe they were unaware of. So, when do you do them?

[00:03:09] I think it depends on what's going on. I think during change. A lot of times, when people bring me in to do stay interviews, it's because they've either gone through some sort of major change. Maybe they have new ownership. Maybe they have new leadership. Maybe they're going through a huge transformation. Maybe they've experienced a lot of turnover. Maybe it's been a long time they've never asked their employees what they really think.

[00:03:38] But, again, you have to be willing to listen. How is this different than an engagement survey? Like, in an engagement survey, you're finding out, you know, what people think of the workplace. You know, presumably it's going to be something along the lines of the Gallup 12. Why do this instead of a, so this maybe should have been my question.

[00:04:05] Why do stay interviews instead of engagement surveys? I just did a whole blog about that. Did you? Oh, hey, I didn't even see it. Look it, I'm like prescient. No, yeah, exactly. I think that engagement surveys are very helpful when you are trying to get a pulse check of an entire organization.

[00:04:32] I think a stay interview is really important and helpful when it's a little bit more targeted. You wouldn't do a stay interview, depending on the size of the organization, for every employee all the time or once a year. I would do an engagement survey maybe a few times, depending on what your cadence is, right, what your purpose is. Yes.

[00:04:59] Um, but I think when there's change, when there's disruption, when there's something going on and you're trying to figure out, when you're bringing someone in from the outside, skip level meetings. Um, I think they're better than skip level meetings because once again, I'm not going to tell my boss's boss. Right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm still, you know, the title, stay interview.

[00:05:27] Actually, it sort of implies that we are going to interview people who are thinking about leaving. I have a better title than I use. Okay. Okay. I use tell me more. Let's do it. Tell me more interviews? Yeah. Tell me more. Tell me what's going on. Tell me how you're feeling. Tell me more. Tell me more. Okay.

[00:05:52] Do we ever do, like, do you advocate for doing state interviews with someone who's a flight risk? Yes. I will. Yes. I advocate for that. But I also advocate for the people who are not a flight risk. Right. So I'll give you an example. Okay.

[00:06:10] So I have a client that recently broke off from a larger organization, took his team, is building this group, has a smallish team, right? And is concerned because people are not vocal. They're not offering ideas, suggestions the way they had been in the prior organization.

[00:06:37] They are trying to implement new processes, new performance management, new stuff, for lack of a better word. And so I did tell me more interviews. Tell me what it's like moving from being part of a bigger organization into a smaller organization. And why did you stay? What was it that made you think this is the right leap? Because they had the choice. Right.

[00:07:08] And it was great. Really, what I ended up finding out was the leadership and the recognition and the support that was being provided was incredible. But they didn't want to add more pressure on the owner by asking things. And so they were talking amongst themselves. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:36] They're actually, you know, trying anyway to be considerate and in so doing worrying the leader. Right. But then he wasn't getting what he needed. So how is he going to build the right kind of organization if he doesn't have people feeling comfortable enough to be able to share that with them? So it was an easy fix. I mean, I always say that culture is what everyone says it is when the leadership leaves the room.

[00:08:02] So that's sometimes the power of a tell me more interview. I had one this morning. I had this one this morning with it was actually a group of people who are under a lot of pressure. And I just said, tell me more. Tell me more about what is going on. What's working well. Where are some of the roadblocks? Let's talk about those. And we came up with a really good plan that we can execute. Right. Mm hmm.

[00:08:31] So that's the tell me more interview. How would a stay interview, like a true stay interview, I'm thinking about a client who is worried. About a couple of employees leaving there in critical roles. And it's a very hard to recruit for role. What does a stay interview in that situation look like?

[00:08:58] Like, I think for something like that is like, what would you like? Why? What brought you here? What keeps you here? And then if you were out in the job market and you saw the job description, how would you respond? Right. If your best friend was interviewing and they wanted to interview here, what advice would you give them? Right. Ouch. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:26] I mean, that answer to that question could hurt at times. Yeah. Yeah. I had, I had someone say to me when I asked that question, he said, I would tell them don't. And I said, don't interview. And he said, yeah, don't interview. Obviously he was on his way out and he did leave. Mm hmm. And it was okay.

[00:09:49] But, you know, it was interesting because I did dig into why. Mm hmm. Why would you tell him don't? So that, so that guy you were just talking about where you interviewed him and he said, in response to the question of, what would you tell a friend who is higher, who is in the recruitment process here? And he said, in one word, don't.

[00:10:19] Let's say you want to keep that guy. You really want to keep that guy. He's critical. What do you do? Then I have a very, like, I heart to heart with him. I tried to figure out exactly what the, where the don't came from and what changed from when he applied. Like, is the job you interviewed for the job you got?

[00:10:43] Because now, a lot of times people will interview and we're all on our best behavior. We're dating. Right. And yeah. And then you start your job and you're no longer dating. And so things get a little bit tougher. But. You know, what changed? Mm hmm. Is the job you interviewed for the job you got? And a lot of times people tell me no.

[00:11:12] And that's not a bad thing always. It doesn't have to be a bad thing. Right. And sometimes they'll say, no, it's not. But it's evolved. And now I'm doing this, which I really like. Right. Which is great. And sometimes in that case, it's no, it's not. You know, I don't like my manager.

[00:11:33] And then if someone doesn't like your manager, like, I think there's a secret fear out there of doing state interviews because it's then, you know, you're obliged to do something about it. And it's like blackmail. Do something about my complaints or us. It does feel like blackmail. Yes, it does. So what do we do? What do you do? What do I do?

[00:12:00] I don't necessarily recommend that we acquiesce to every complaining employee's issues. If there's something that's substantive, if there's something that's a leadership issue, if there's some sort of harassment, if there's some sort of problem that needs to be addressed and we need to address it. If it's a matter of providing more support in an area that we didn't know needed it, because perhaps.

[00:12:27] Perhaps the manager is micromanaging. I'm just making this up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but that's a great example because that's probably often I'm sure the case. Right. But maybe they're micromanaging because of another reason. If we can help support that. Then that could potentially turn it around.

[00:12:48] If there's in some situations, sometimes you do have to move the person into a different group if there's somebody who's really valuable, but maybe they're valuable because of the work that they're doing for the other group and they don't feel valued where they're at. Do you know what I mean? So it makes sense to move them. But no, I would not acquiesce like I want more money or I'm going to leave. Leave because you're going to leave that company too. Right. I mean, I don't mean leave, but you don't want them to leave.

[00:13:16] But you can't just give them a raise unless they've never gotten one. How do you set expectations then in that kind of scenario with someone who, you know, might be raising concerns like that? Like, I want more money. I don't like my manager. How do you set expectations at the start that we will address substantive concerns?

[00:13:44] We'll try to address substantive concerns, but we won't address. I tell people, listen, I want to hear exactly what you're feeling and experiencing. I'm not going to talk about what you said unless it's something where I need to say that this happened, in which case I'm going to tell you that I will. But I want to hear how you're feeling.

[00:14:10] And I want to try and boil up some themes that could help improve how we do what we do, how we support employees, how we train leadership, how we provide opportunities. Right. Right. So I try to manage expectations up front and I will tell them that you may say something that is bothering you. It doesn't mean I can fix it.

[00:14:38] And it doesn't mean that I will. Right. So I want to be very upfront about that. But I definitely want to hear what you have to say. Because it's. Everything continually changes and that context helps me as I support the organization. Mm hmm. OK, fair. I like that.

[00:15:03] OK, what's you've given so many examples of already like of stay questions of questions you would ask in the interview. You're tell me more interviews. Maybe tell me more is your best question. But what are your top two questions? I absolutely love the one that I just said that I can't remember right now off the top of my head. Oh, if your best friend was interviewing for the job. Yeah. Yeah. What kind of advice would you give them?

[00:15:33] Another one would probably be what does leadership do that seems to make sense to them but makes no sense to anyone else? Right. Do you get great answers out of that? Yeah, I do. Huh. Yeah. I've never asked that one. I'm going to have to try it soon. Another one is like, what is something that you've learned to work around? Oh. Oh.

[00:16:04] Oh. I want to go and ask those questions now. Like totally. Oh. When you're doing these, how do you pull the information together so you can see trends and bring them to leadership? To stay interviews is not a trend. Right. It's a data point. Like, how do you make meaning out of it? Sometimes a stay interview starts with one or two people.

[00:16:33] And because maybe the department is small and maybe we're just trying to figure something out. Right. Maybe it's just me going and, you know, hey, Andrea, I know this is going on. Let's just talk. Like what I was doing this morning. It could be something like that. But from there, there's a red thread. I don't know where it leads to. I know that there's a connection. Everybody in an organization connects to each other in some way, shape, or form.

[00:17:03] None of us have a job that just operates in isolation. Just, it doesn't. Yeah. So, I start to pull on that red thread and I will go to the next place. I'll make the recommendation. I think I need to also talk to this group of people. And I'll start to kind of weave around. And from that, I can kind of pull together trends. Right. Because you're right. One is not.

[00:17:34] That's, I mean, potentially that's just complaining. Right. Right. Exactly. And, you know, and I get those too. We all do. Right. And so, and that's fine. They have to have a place to deposit whatever it is that's bothering them. But yeah, so I'll do that. And I'll put together kind of, I'll give you an example. One of my clients has a department that there was a lot of conflict with.

[00:18:05] Excuse me. Mm-hmm. So, I put together a format for tell me more interviews, stay interviews. Mm-hmm. From there, I was able to figure out that maybe the root cause of some of the conflict was coming from a different area. Yeah. So, I went into there too. And then I branched out a little bit just to see where, like, where were the margins? And I put together some trends and ideals.

[00:18:34] And I put together risk factors. Yeah. You know, what I envision to be risk factors, recommendations. And they implemented most of them. And they are in a better position now because they're aware they can do something about it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Can do anything about something you know nothing about. Something that you don't know is broken, right? So, like, that's the benefit of hearing stuff that maybe you don't want to hear.

[00:19:02] And that's the problem that a lot of organizations have. We've mentioned engagement surveys. Engagement surveys that you don't act on become worthless, right? You've got to be willing to hear it. And engagement surveys where the employees feel that the leadership is trying to figure out who said what isn't going to be honest. And I've seen that happen. So, don't do it.

[00:19:28] My rule is that if you are going to do a survey, you have to be prepared to act afterwards. Yeah. Don't do it if you're not going to do anything. Okay. So, we're getting to the end of this. If someone wants to learn more about stay interviews or about your work, where can they find you? And I think you said you have a blog. Mention your blog. My blog is on my website. My blog is called Opti Insights.

[00:19:58] Mm-hmm. It's on my website, which is optipeopleresources.com. Okay. And you can also find me on LinkedIn. Okay. All right. Okay. I'll put links to those also in the show notes. All right. Well, thanks, Julie. That was great. The part I'm thinking about is reframing stay interviews as tell me more interviews. Because I do think the name stay is off-putting.

[00:20:27] Because we don't want to cater to people who tend to complain more. So, that's helpful. I've also done episodes on engagement and engagement surveys. And a link to one of those is here. Thanks for watching out there. And we'll see you next time.