stay interview

A stay interview is an organized meeting between a manager and an existing employee to review the reasons the employee stays with the company and seeking out concerns that might influence the employee to leave. A stay interview is intended to identify a company’s strengths and weaknesses related to employee experience and satisfaction, which can help with employee retention and recruiting.

Stay interviews are often considered the opposite of an exit interview, where the employee is interviewed after deciding to leave the organization. Stay interviews take a proactive approach, sometimes correcting small issues before they become serious problems. In contrast, exit interviews are a corrective approach to identifying problems that have already caused employee loss and that may also affect general morale and productivity.

Employers may choose to conduct stay interviews to improve the employee-employer relationship and use the periodic communications help build trust. The effort to understand what employees enjoy and the willingness to hear concerns can also improve employee satisfaction and security, so long as employees feel free to communicate their concerns without negative repercussions.