I remember back in 2010, our now CEO, Mo Brown, hosted an HR Director networking breakfast, at which I was a guest. We were having a good conversation about the challenge of employee turnover and inevitably got into a discussion about understanding why people leave. One HR Director shared that her organisation conducted ‘stay interviews’ to get on the front foot and understand retention risks so they could proactively retain their people. I remember thinking, what a brilliant, forward-thinking organisation that is. Six months later, I joined that very organisation and saw first-hand the positive impact stay interviews had.
Given the real benefits of stay interviews, we developed a stay survey as part of our product offering at MI-Say. We have been delightfully surprised at the number of organisations wanting to talk to us about driving proactive retention by collecting insight from current employees.
So, what is a stay interview/survey?
Stay interviews/surveys come in two forms:
- Stay interviews usually involve identifying people who are considered to be talent and/or a flight risk. Either the manager or HR has a proactive conversation with them to understand how they feel about their job, team, and organisation. The conversation usually involves understanding frustrations but also what the employee values and enjoys. It can also include discussions about career, development, and reward. Stay interviews are great for developing the connection between a manager and their people, helping managers understand how their employees feel, and supporting proactive leadership.
- Stay surveys are more scalable as they are aimed at a larger population to gain broader insight into why people stay and why they might leave. They serve as a way to gather feedback on critical elements of employee experience that we know are linked to retention (such as belonging and an intact psychological contract). They also enable employers to predict retention risks, as participants are asked in a safe and anonymous way whether they intend to stay. Stay surveys are great because they are scalable, safe, and anonymous for employees. They deliver candid, proactive insight.
How Does a Stay Survey Differ from an Engagement Survey?
This is a question we’ve been asked a few times. Both measure engagement to a degree, but the fundamental difference is that a stay survey is a way of getting more targeted feedback.
Engagement surveys measure the extent to which employees have passion and commitment to their jobs, their peers, their leaders, and their organisation. They are more of a snapshot of general sentiment, whereas stay surveys ask very specific questions relating to retention, of which employee experience and engagement are a part.
Stay surveys help us understand what keeps people and how we can keep them longer. They are a much more dynamic tool that can be used either in the same way as an engagement survey or as an intervention when facing a retention risk or higher turnover.
And of course, they are much more proactive than an exit interview.
What Does a Stay Interview/Survey Cover?
Our stay surveys cover four key areas:
- Employee experience with a specific purpose. We ask what people value and what they find frustrating. As part of this question set, we seek to understand what they value the most and what keeps them working for the organisation, as well as what could tip them to consider leaving.
- Belonging and mattering A sense of belonging is a fundamental human need and is positively correlated with retention. Mattering is about knowing that we are valued and that our work has an impact—a vital element of motivation and engagement. We explore these areas as part of our survey.
- Advocacy. We ask to what extent participants would recommend their employer as a good place to work. This provides us with an employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS).
- Intention. We ask whether participants intend to stay for the next 6–12 months (the timeline depends on the organisation and employee profile). Intent to stay is a very good predictor of action; for instance, if 25% of people say they do not intend to stay, there is a good chance the organisation will experience 25% turnover. We also seek to understand whether participants are active in the labour market and, if so, whether it is due to attractive roles elsewhere (pull factors) or frustrations within the organisation (push factors)—or both.
How Can We Use Stay Surveys?
Stay surveys can be a great tool as part of a proactive listening strategy. They can be used to target specific high-flight-risk groups or for tailoring retention solutions for key talent. They are essentially a means of early issue detection.
Stay surveys are also being used either instead of or as a complement to engagement surveys. Employers who experience higher employee turnover than they would like value the incisive and specific insight they gain from understanding not just why people leave—or might leave—but why they stay.
They can also add value to HR’s people analytics by helping us become more predictive and proactive in our analysis. There is potential to connect data dots to generate meaningful and actionable insight. For example, if data shows there is a spike in employee turnover at year two of someone’s tenure, stay surveys at 12 or 18 months can help uncover what is driving this and, more importantly, help prevent it.
We’ve really enjoyed the stay survey conversations we’ve been having with clients and employers of all shapes and sizes. If you would like to learn more or discuss whether stay surveys could benefit your organisation, please contact us at hello@mi-say.com.
Julia Smith – Chief Business Psychologist
