May 06, 2026

Staying Power: Employee Retention Through Stay Interviews

Employee retention, especially among top performers, is key to the success of any organization. How can you, as an employer, encourage your best employees to stay with you? Read through to learn how conducting stay interviews can be an important retention strategy for your company.

High-performing workplaces such as Google, IBM, Nissan and Starbucks are among a growing list of organizations that have benefited from having their employees participate in stay interviews. Traditionally, most companies conduct only two interviews: the hiring interview and the exit interview. By the time a company is ready to complete an exit interview, it's too late to address any of the employees' concerns that might have prevented them from looking outside the firm for a job.

When employees feel stuck in their current role, for example, chances are they are already thinking about or actively looking for a new job. The research tells us that more than half of the workforce is seeking new opportunities. According to a recent Gallup poll, it costs a company one to two times an employee's salary to replace them. It certainly is in the best interests of the organization to find ways to keep employee job satisfaction high, and stay interviewing is an effective tool in management's toolbox.

Giving employees the opportunity to be heard through the stay interviewing process is a powerful way to foster engagement. Sitting down to participate in a one-on-one interview allows the employee to voice their needs, concerns and aspirations. Nissan implemented "skip-level meetings," where employees meet with senior-level managers to offer positive and negative feedback from all levels within the company. The result was a clear win, with 83% of surveyed employees saying they were proud to work for the car company.

Stay interviews help organizations identify employee dissatisfaction early on so they can take corrective actions. These meetings build trusting relationships that become essential to the corporate culture.

Here are some pro tips regarding stay interviewing that were gathered from the experiences of people whose companies had already committed to the process:

• Stay interviews should be conducted periodically throughout the year, separately from performance appraisals. Ideally, interviews should be no longer than 30-45 minutes in length. Provide staff members with any questions you would like them to reflect on prior to the interview. This makes for a productive use of time since the employees can come prepared and not be taken by surprise by a query.
• Make sure to invite a wide variety of staff across all departments and at all levels. The aim is to hear a full range of perspectives to give you the best idea of how employees feel about working in the company. However, it's also important to include high-performing employees with longevity to understand why they have remained with the company. Help all employees understand that you want the interview to be a "safe place" to offer honest feedback without fear of reprimand.
• Stay interviews give management an opportunity to address any pain points before they become major problems. If corrective action is needed, it should be handled as soon as possible. Employees need to feel that their input makes a difference in the day-to-day operations and that they are a valued part of it.
• Management needs to listen carefully to the aspirations of those employees seeking advancement in their careers. Ask what they would like to see in terms of additional training, mentoring or professional development to help them get to the next level.

The objective of stay interviews is to find out what it is that keeps your employees coming to work each day as well as what they dislike about your company. The process is only effective when management commits to finding ways to retain employees. It's a better strategy than finding out at an exit interview.

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