Stay Interview

A stay interview is a structured, proactive conversation between a manager and a current employee focused on understanding what keeps them engaged, satisfied, and likely to stay, rather than waiting until they've already decided to leave.

It's essentially the inverse of an exit interview: instead of learning why someone left after the fact, it asks why someone stays while there's still time to act on the answer.

SHRM and other HR research bodies have promoted stay interviews specifically because exit interview data, by definition, arrives too late to change the outcome.

What Questions Belong in a Stay Interview?

• What makes you want to stay at this company?
• What might tempt you to consider leaving?
• What would you change about your role or team if you could?
• Do you feel recognized for your contributions?
• What can I, as your manager, do better to support you?

How Is a Stay Interview Different From a Performance Review?

A performance review evaluates how someone is doing against goals and expectations. A stay interview is specifically about engagement and retention, not performance evaluation.

Combining the two conversations tends to backfire, since employees are less likely to speak candidly about frustrations or flight risk in a conversation that's also assessing their performance.

When Should Stay Interviews Be Conducted?

Many organizations run them annually for all employees, with additional check-ins for high performers or employees showing early signs of disengagement, like a dip in eNPS.

Timing them separately from the performance review cycle, and outside of any period involving active disciplinary action, helps keep the conversation genuinely open rather than defensive, a point Forbes has emphasized when covering retention best practices.

How Should Managers Prepare for and Run a Stay Interview?

Gallup's research consistently finds that employees who feel genuinely heard by their manager are significantly more engaged than those who aren't, which is the core value a well-run stay interview delivers.

Tracking themes across stay interviews inside employee engagement tools helps HR spot patterns across teams, not just isolated individual feedback.

• Approach it as genuine listening, not a scripted checklist to get through quickly
• Ask open-ended questions and actually leave room for silence and follow-up
• Take the answers seriously enough to follow up with real action, not just a thank-you
• Keep the conversation confidential from unrelated personnel decisions, and log themes through a shared HRIS

How Does This Connect to the Broader Employee Lifecycle?

Stay interviews sit squarely in the retention stage of the employee lifecycle, complementing broader signals like eNPS with a direct, individual conversation.

Combining stay interview themes with data from onboarding and ongoing employee self-service activity gives a fuller picture of engagement than any single input alone.

This connects to related terms in HR Cloud's HR glossary, especially the employee lifecycle, employee journey mapping, and eNPS.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Who should conduct a stay interview?

A: Typically the employee's direct manager, since they have the most context and relationship with the employee, though HR often provides the framework and questions.

Q: How long should a stay interview take?

A: Most run 20 to 30 minutes, long enough for a genuine conversation without becoming a lengthy formal meeting that feels burdensome to schedule regularly.

Q: Should stay interviews be documented?

A: Yes, capturing key themes helps track patterns over time and follow up on commitments made, though specific personal disclosures should be handled with appropriate discretion.

Q: Do stay interviews work for remote employees?

A: Yes, and they can be especially valuable for remote employees, who may have fewer informal opportunities to raise concerns compared to in-office staff.

Q: What should happen after a stay interview reveals a concern?

A: The manager or HR should follow up with a concrete action or explanation within a reasonable timeframe; a stay interview that goes nowhere afterward can do more harm than not asking at all.