Improving Employee Retention & Engagement through Stay Interviews
Speaker: Pete Tosh
Speaker Designation: Founder, The Focus Group
Speaker: Pete Tosh
Speaker Designation: Founder, The Focus Group
Turnover today is rampant because employees can be choosy with:
» The lowest unemployment rate in 48 years
» For the first time in the U.S., there are more job openings than eligible candidates
» Over half of U.S. employees say it is ‘somewhat likely’ or ‘very likely’ they can find a job as
good as the one they have
» 50% of employees & 60% of millennials considering new employment opportunities
» The average tenure for employees in their 20’s being less than 18 months
And turnover is expensive with the cost of replacing a:
» $10-hour employee over $3,000
» $30-50,000 job over $8,000
» replacing a $100,000 often over $200,000
However, engaged employees when compared to unengaged employees have:
» 65% less turnover in low-turnover organizations
» and 25% lower turnover in high-turnover organizations
Stay interviews are an important means of re-recruiting your workforce – because what attracts your employees is often different from what will keep them. Stay interviews tend to improve engagement and productivity - as well as retention. In this webinar, you will learn how to prepare for, conduct & follow through on stay interviews.
It is easy to make the business case for retaining your organization’s talent because turnover is both rampant and expensive And to make matters worse – the most talented employees:
Stay Interviews have become a very popular and effective means of reducing turnover with supervisors meeting individually with their direct reports to learn why they are staying or might leave and what the supervisor can do to improve each employee's work experience. To know how to encourage employees to stay, we have to ask only they know. Exit Interviews are too late.
The Objective of a Stay Interview
» Making employees feel valued & improving engagement, productivity & retention
» Reinforcing good relationships, forging new ones & helping repair those that are strained
» Re-recruiting talent, causing employees to feel valued & enhancing the relationship between an employee & his/her manager
What Stay Interviews Are
» Employee/supervisor meetings to uncover what is important to each employee
» Means of learning why employees stay might leave & what their supervisor can do to improve their work experience
Why Stay Interviews Are Not
» Performance appraisals
» Conducted only when problems arise
» Personal development
» Causal, random discussions
Initiating a Stay Interview Program
» Who should conduct the interviews & why
» Training managers & leaders
» Setting retention goals
Scheduling & Conducting Stay Interviews
» Frequency & length of each interview
» Preparing for an interview
» The most effective stay interview questions
» How to probe for candid responses
» Handling employee responses for which you don’t have an immediate answer
Following Through on Your Stay Interviews
» Creating & documenting action plans
» Sharing accountability for the follow-through
» Following up on the action plans
» Forecasting future turnover
Employee retention and engagement are crucial for organizational success. High turnover and disengagement can lead to significant costs and negatively impact productivity and morale. To address this, many organizations use "stay interviews"—structured conversations that help identify what keeps employees motivated and committed. Unlike exit interviews, stay interviews focus on improving the employee experience before they consider leaving. By regularly conducting these interviews, organizations can gain valuable insights, build trust, increase engagement, and reduce turnover, ultimately leading to a more motivated and productive workforce.
Pete Tosh is Founder of The Focus Group, a management consulting and training firm in Macon, Ga. that assists organizations in sustaining profitable growth through four core disciplines:
• Maximizing Leadership Effectiveness
• Strategic Planning
• Implementing Strategic HR Initiatives
• Enhancing Customer Loyalty
The Focus Group has provided these consulting and training services to manufacturing and service organizations across the U.S., Canada, Europe, and the Middle East. Pete has worked closely with the leadership teams of organizations such as Exxon, Brinks, EMC, State Farm, Marriott, N.C.I. YKK and Freddie Mac Prior to founding his own firm 25 years ago, Pete had 15 years of experience in Human Resource and Quality functions holding leadership positions to include the V.P. of Human Resources and Quality. Pete is co-author of Leading Your Organization to the Next Level: the Core Disciplines of Sustained Profitable Growth. Pete holds a B.A. degree in Psychology from Emory and Henry College and Masters degrees in both Business Administration and Industrial Psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University.