STAY INTERVIEWS
Stay interview questions: 13 question examples to help you retain talent
Steal the exact questions that HR pros use to identify positivity drivers, measure satisfaction, weed out retention risks and promote growth alignment.
Key takeaways:
- Stay vs. Exit Interviews: Stay interviews are conducted with active employees and ask proactive questions to identify retention risks and improve employee satisfaction.
- Pro tip: send a pre-interview survey to gather data early; this removes the administrative burden from the 1-on-1, allowing for a more focused, human conversation.
- Use a mix of quantitative questions and open-ended questions to capture both measurable trends and deep context.
- Ask questions that uncover unused talents and specific "pain points" you can actually fix to demonstrate immediate value.
According to a SurveyMoney study, only 32% of HR pros say their company has been ‘very successful’ at addressing turnover. And the reasons are varied—35% of HR pros say employee attrition is caused by compensation and benefits, 29% burnout, 29% lack of flexible work arrangements, and 27% say poor work-life balance. With such a diverse list, how can HR teams know where to focus their efforts?
Stay interviews have gained popularity as a way to help HR professionals improve employee retention and employee engagement. With stay interviews, employees have the opportunity to share what they value about their job and their company, and what they think can be improved.
What is a stay interview?
A stay interview is an in-person meeting that managers conduct with active employees to understand what they value in their role and what could be improved to increase their job satisfaction. Stay interviews are similar to exit interviews, but are conducted with active employees, rather than leavers.
The most important goal of a stay interview is for HR to gain an understanding of what motivates and engages employees and what will increase retention. With the right questions, HR teams can get candid, actionable feedback to understand how the company is doing, and where you can improve.
Learn more about stay interviews.
How to conduct a stay interview
- Send a pre-interview survey to gather baseline data.
- Listen 80%, Talk 20% during the 1-on-1.
- Create an action plan based on the feedback.
Learn more tips about how to conduct a stay interview.
13 stay interview questions that you should ask
Asking the right questions for a stay interview can be challenging—you want to engage employees quickly and make sure that you give them an opportunity to talk about the specifics of their unique situation.
Use a combination of ranking questions and open-ended questions. This way, you’ll get some measurable quantitative answers and gather ideas directly from employees about what you can do to retain them.
Part 1: Warm-up & Positive Drivers
Goal: Build rapport and identify what is currently "anchoring" the employee to the company.
- What do you look forward to most when you come to work every day? - Comment box question
- What motivates you the most in your current role? - Comment box question
- What factors contribute to your decision to stay with the company? Select all that apply: career advancement opportunities, work-life balance, job security, company culture, compensation and benefits, relationship with colleagues, other. - Checkbox question
- How likely are you to recommend our company as a great place to work? - eNPS question
Part 2: Core Satisfaction & Support
Goal: Measure the health of their immediate environment (manager and peers).
- How satisfied are you with your current role in the company? - Likert scale question
- How supported do you feel by your manager? - Likert scale question
- How would you rate the communication between you and your manager? - Likert scale question
- How supported do you feel by your team and colleagues? - Likert scale question
Part 3: The "Pain Points" (The Retention Risks)
Goal: Get specific about why they might leave. This is where you get the most actionable data.
- What do you like least about your job? - Comment box question
- What changes or improvements would you suggest to make your work experience better? - Comment box question
Part 4: Skill Alignment & Future Growth
Goal: Prevent "bore-out" and identify career paths before the employee starts looking elsewhere.
- How well do you feel your skills are being utilized in your current position? - Likert scale question
- What talents do you have that are not being used in your current role? - Comment box question
- Do you feel you have opportunities for professional growth within the company? - Likert scale question
How stay interviews can help you retain top performers
According to a CNBC|SurveyMonkey, 33% of US workers said that feeling that their work is meaningful was the most important factor in job satisfaction. In fact, this ranked well above compensation, which was a distant second at 23%.
That’s where stay interviews can help. Instead of guessing what contributes to employee engagement or what makes employees want to leave a company, HR teams can pinpoint what employees really value. Asking these question in a survey format can complement the in-person stay interviews.
Anonymity settings can be useful for this kind of feedback. Make sure that the survey platform you choose can collect feedback that stays private and anonymous. Using the trusted SurveyMonkey brand can help your employees feel comfortable letting you know what’s on their minds.
As far as timing, stay interview surveys can be sent to teams every 3 to 6 months so you’re collecting up-to-the-minute feedback that reflects what your employees are feeling on topics like job satisfaction and burnout. Even HR teams with little survey experience can easily create surveys and collect feedback, using pre-built survey templates and question banks. Act on that feedback with built-in analytics—no advanced training or data analytics background required.
Try adding a stay interview survey to your regularly scheduled employee feedback. Explore our free employee survey templates.
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