The Rise of the “Stay” Interview – How Things Have Changed!

By Eli Amdur

If you’re not yet totally convinced that we’re in the most favorable employee’s job market in memory, then try this on for size: one of the fastest growing practices – if not the fastest right now – is the “stay” interview.

The “what” interview?!?

Certainly, we’re all familiar with the exit interview, a meeting the employer conducts when you’ve announced your resignation. They want to know why you’re leaving – and that can help them in the future – but here’s what’s inherently wrong with that picture. First, it’s like closing the barn doorafter the horses are out. They should have cared about that much earlier. Y’know?

Second, exit interviews are reactive rather than proactive – and if they yield valuable insight,that’s potentially to the employer’s future advantage while doing nothing for you – unless, of course,they’re trying to keep you through a counteroffer or other embellishments. But if that’s the case, why didn’t they belly up before it was too late? In general, though – and pardon the skepticism – exit interviews are like whispering in the ear of a corpse. They’re usually as useless as glass hammers.

But that seemed OK when the market strongly favored employers. They didn’t really have to put much effort into little things like – oh – retention, constructive culture, and professional development because there were always lots of candidates in the pool.

Not so anymore. With 11 million open jobs but only 6.5 million unemployed people, that’s a seriously lopsided labor shortage that has led employers to the reality that they need to figure out what to do to (1) keep valuable talent, (2) attract more of the same, and (3) keep everyone engaged.

Enter the stay interview. While exit interviews are reactive and transactional, stay interviews are proactive and strategic. Exit interviews focus on what causes employees to leave while stay interviews attempt to identify what could cause employees to remain engaged. Going from “What went wrong?” to “What’s going right?” and “What can we do better?” is like going from night to day.

Employers of all sizes and in all industries are putting concerted efforts into developing retention practices to identify and listen to their valued talent. So it’s not uncommon at all for employees to be asked to meet one-on-one with their bosses or HR reps, not to find out what went wrong, but what’s going right and what can be improved.

They have no choice. In December, 6.8 million hires were made, 6.5 million jobs saw turnover, and 4.7 million employees voluntarily quit. While all that was going on, only 1.3 million layoffs took place which, at 0.8 percent, was the lowest rate on record. Employers, by necessity, are circling the wagons. In a war for talent, they must play both offense and defense.

But here’s the thing. Employers are doing this with workers they consider valuable: “keepers,” in other words, which should tell you everything you need to know about the fact that, even though this is an employee’s market, you can’t take anything for granted. You’ve got to become or remain on the employer’s “A” list. Otherwise, you know which list you wind up on, right? At that point, this whole thing doesn’t matter.

But let’s say you are a keeper, what can you expect in a stay interview? Thinking about what you like about a job, your boss, and the company, that’s pretty much what you’ll be asked about: What are your goals? Are we helping you reach them? What do you like about your job? Dislike? Do you see a career path here? What would that look like? How do you feel about the teamwork (or lack of) around here? How about the company culture? The technology? What changes would you make?

Absent the space here to list all the kinds of stay questions, here are the important broad strokes: (1) This must be a trusting, honest, constructive conversation, with mutual value as the goal, and (2) There must be follow-up action agreed upon.

What a position of strength this is for you, the employee. But the great thing about this is that it’s a position of strength for your employer, too. This co-equal strength is a portent of good things – if you both go into this for the same reason.

So now might you be convinced that we’re in the most favorable employee job market in memory? Methinks we are.

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Career Coach Eli Amdur provides one-on-one coaching in job search, résumés, and interviewing. Reach him at [email protected] or 201-357-5844.