The stay interview: A simple retention tool many companies still skip

‍

You've just lost someone good. Maybe a strong performer, maybe someone who quietly kept things running. In the exit interview, they say the right things: new opportunity, better fit, nothing personal. You're left wondering: was there something you could have done?

Probably, yes. A stay interview – a structured, one-to-one conversation about what's keeping someone engaged, run before any thoughts of leaving your organisation have been communicated – is one of the simplest and most underused tools in employee retention strategy. 

Data backs up why it matters: Gallup found that 42% of employees who voluntarily leave a job say their departure could have been prevented, and 45% say no manager or leader proactively discussed how their job was going in the three months before they left. In other words: people don't always leave because something is unfixable. They leave because nobody asked.

Most retention tools tell you why people left, not who is about to.

Exit interviews happen only after someone has already decided to go. By then, you can't change the outcome, only learn from it.

‍Engagement surveys catch broader trends, but they're usually anonymous and aggregated, making them a poor substitute for an individual retention conversation.

That's exactly the gap stay interviews fill: a regular, individual, forward-looking conversation about what's keeping someone here, run while there's still time to act. Despite their benefit, stay interviews are far from being widely implemented in organisations.

In this article, we'll walk you through what a stay interview is, how to introduce it to your team, what to ask, and what to do with what you learn. 

‍

What a stay interview is – and what it isn't

What is a stay interview?

A stay interview is a structured, one-to-one conversation between HR (or a manager, depending on context) and an employee, focused on what's currently working well, what's fragile, and what would make them want to stay longer. It's forward-looking, not a post-mortem.

Unlike an exit interview, no one is leaving. Unlike an engagement survey, it's not anonymous or aggregated. It's simply a dedicated space to ask someone who still works for you: what's keeping you here, and what might eventually push you out?

‍

Who should run it? This depends on your organisation. We generally recommend HR take the lead, since a lot of what comes up is likely to touch on the employee's relationship with their manager and people are often more candid with someone slightly removed from their day-to-day reporting line. That said, in smaller or younger companies, a founder or the direct manager themselves may be the more natural fit, especially where trust is already high and HR isn't yet a dedicated function. The right choice is less about hierarchy and more about who the employee will actually be honest with. If you feel like you need an even more neutral conversation partner or you just lack the capacity to run these meetings yourself, you could also consider leveraging trusted external partners. We’ve successfully run such interviews for our clients in the past. But we would only recommend this option if your team already knows the external party a bit and likely feels they can trust them. 

‍

What a stay interview isn't

A stay interview can look deceptively similar to other conversations you're already having, but it serves a different purpose, and mixing it up undermines both.

• It's not a performance review. There's no scoring, no development plan, and no discussion of targets. Bringing performance into the mix makes employees cautious about what they say: nobody wants to raise a concern about their manager two minutes before being rated on their output.

• It's not a regular feedback conversation. Feedback conversations tend to focus on general collaboration, specific projects or behaviours, in either direction. A stay interview zooms out: it's about the bigger picture of why someone stays or might leave, not how a particular piece of work went.

• It shouldn't be bolted onto something else. Tacking stay interview questions onto the end of a review or 1:1 signals that retention is an afterthought which means it rarely gets the thoughtful answers it's designed to surface. Give it its own slot, clearly labelled as such. But it's of course better to reserve some time in your regular meetings for checking in on your team member’s job satisfaction than not doing it at all.

‍

When to conduct stay interviews & how to frame them for the team

Run them consistently, not selectively

It's tempting to save stay interviews for people you're worried about losing, but that's exactly the trap to avoid. If only your flight-risk employees get invited to one, the invitation itself becomes a (slightly unsettling) signal. Run stay interviews across the whole team (or at least consistently within a group, such as all direct reports of a manager) so they're understood as a normal part of how you work, not a warning sign.

‍

How often: it depends on your context

The right cadence depends on your organisation's size, pace, and stage.

• Young or fast-growing companies tend to benefit from running stay interviews roughly once a year. Roles, teams, and priorities shift quickly, so what kept someone engaged twelve months ago may no longer apply.

• More established or stable organisations may find every few years sufficient or run them when triggered by an event like a reorganisation, a leadership change or results from an engagement survey showing dips.

In either case, the goal is the same: don't let stay interviews become a one-off initiative that quietly disappears after the first round. Build in a rhythm, even a loose one, so the conversation becomes something people expect and trust.

‍

Duration

Plan for roughly 30–60 minutes, depending on how many areas you want to cover. If you're using a broader set of questions (covering satisfaction, development, compensation and leadership, for example), the longer end of that range gives the conversation room to breathe without feeling rushed. If you're focusing on just one or two areas, 30 minutes may be enough. We recommend a focused, unhurried conversation over a comprehensive one that feels like a checklist.

‍

Framing it for the team

How you introduce stay interviews might matter as much as how you run them. Done well, the announcement itself builds trust before the first conversation even happens. Here's a short example you could adapt for an email, a team meeting or your company handbook:

‍

“Over the next few weeks, we're introducing stay interviews, a short, one-to-one conversation with [HR/your manager] focused on one simple question: what makes your job here work well, and what would make it work even better?

This isn't a performance review, and it isn't reserved for people we're worried about losing. Everyone will have one, regardless of how things are going. It's confidential, not anonymous: your [HR contact/manager] will take notes to follow up on anything actionable, but what you share won't be passed on without your knowledge.

You can find the questionnaire we will use as an orientation for our exchange attached in case you would like to start reflecting on some of the questions. We are looking forward to some honest conversations with you that help us improve as an organisation.”

‍

Stay interview questions: what to ask

Set the right mindset first

Before any specific question, the tone of the conversation matters more than the wording. Stay interviews work best when they're open-ended and curious, not a checklist to get through or an opportunity to defend or explain away whatever comes up.

‍

A few principles to keep in mind:

• Focus on listening and understanding. The goal of this conversation is not to solve anything. It's to understand how people really feel and what they think, and to gather a genuine picture of the mood in the room. Deciding what to do with this information comes afterwards. 

• Be ready to hear something uncomfortable. If someone raises a concern about their workload, their manager, or their pay, resist the urge to get defensive or minimise it. The goal is information, not reassurance.

• Keep the structure consistent, but leave room for individual topics. Use a structured questionnaire to ensure comparability and that all important topics are covered every time. Where there is history with an individual, such as earlier conversations or open concerns, it is right to go beyond the standard questions and set a different focus. The questionnaire gives you the baseline; the history tells you where to look more closely. 

‍

Stay interview questions

Here are a few questions that we've seen work well in a stay interview. Please consider them as a starting point that needs to be adapted to your organisational context. You'll likely want to adjust the depth and focus depending on the person, the role, and what's already come up in other conversations.

‍

General satisfaction

• What do you like best about working here? What do you like least?
• When did you last consider leaving this organisation? What was the trigger?
• What could tempt you to leave the organisation?

‍

Role & personal development

• Do you feel you're able to fully use your knowledge, skills, and experience?
• If you could change one thing about your role, what would it be?
• What are your mid- and long-term professional goals? How can we support you?

‍

Appreciation & compensation

• Do you feel adequately recognised and appreciated for your achievements? Why, or why not?
• How satisfied are you with your salary and benefits?

‍

Leadership & collaboration

• How would you describe your relationship with your manager?
• Does your manager support you sufficiently in your personal and professional development, including feedback?
• What should your manager do more or less of?

‍

Catch-all

• What is this organisation not doing, but should be?
• Is there anything else you'd like to share?

‍

What to do with the answers

What happens after your stay interviews determines whether the exercise was worth the time. Thoughtful questions without a clear follow-up process just lead to disappointment the moment nothing visibly changes.

‍

1. Summarise the results, and separate patterns from individual views

Bring everything together in one place rather than leaving notes scattered across individual managers. As you review the answers, sort them into two buckets:

• Individual points: specific to one person's situation (e.g. "Peter would like more flexibility around school pick-up times")

• Patterns: the same theme showing up across multiple people (e.g. three people across different teams mention feeling under-recognised)

Patterns point to something systemic worth addressing at a team or organisational level. Individual points need individual follow-up, but don't necessarily require a policy change.

‍

2. Plot your team on a staying-vs-leaving index

Use what you've learned to form a rough view of where each person currently sits: firmly staying, neutral, or showing real signs of flight risk. This isn't a precise science, and it shouldn't be treated as one; it's a working tool to help you prioritise.

Start with the people who show signs of risk but whom you genuinely don't want to lose. These are the conversations and follow-ups that deserve your attention first – not because everyone else doesn't matter, but because this is where timely action can have the largest impact to reduce turnover and disengagement.

‍

3. Decide which topics to pick up – and where

Not everything raised needs immediate action, and trying to act on all of it at once usually means nothing gets done well. Prioritise based on how many people raised a theme, how much influence you realistically have over it, and how much it's likely to affect retention if left unaddressed.

Some topics are best addressed within leadership (for example, a pattern around unclear career paths might shape your next planning cycle). Others are worth bringing directly to the team. A recurring theme about collaboration or workload might be exactly the kind of thing to open up at a team offsite, where people can shape the solution together rather than have it handed down.

‍

4. Develop next steps for patterns and for individuals

For systemic patterns, feed them into broader people decisions: compensation reviews, manager training, career frameworks or workload planning. For individuals, agree on specific, visible follow-ups (even small ones). A changed deadline, a stakeholder conversation or a concrete next step on a development goal does more for trust than a vague “we'll look into it.” Set a rough timeline so these commitments don't quietly disappear.

‍

5. Decide what you can share with the wider team

Even where individual comments stay confidential, aggregate themes are usually worth communicating back. Something like “A few of you raised X, and here's what we're doing about it.” This closes the loop at a team level, not just a personal one, and signals that the exercise led to something real rather than disappearing into a drawer. Be careful to keep this genuinely aggregated; if a theme only came from one or two people, sharing it risks exposing who said what.

‍

The conversation worth having before it's too late

Stay interviews won't catch everything, and they won't guarantee anyone stays. But they replace guesswork with an open conversation, which is more than most retention strategies offer. The real question is simple: when did you last ask your best people what's keeping them here, before you needed to?

If you'd like support designing or running your stay interview process, we're happy to help. 

‍