Why Every Company Needs to Conduct Stay In Interviews

Written by Sirmara Campbell Twohill, Chief Human Resources Officer at LaSalle Network, a Staffing and Recruiting Firm Headquartered in Chicago

It’s no secret that the jobs market is improving and while it’s not back to pre-recession levels, it’s significant enough for employees to begin changing jobs and for employers to reconsider their current employee retention strategies. What are they currently doing to retain a top player if/when they are offered a higher paycheck elsewhere? One crucial tool to retain top talent is conducting stay interviews.

Stay interviews are interviews conducted regularly with top performers to discuss what they like and don’t like about their role, who they report to, and the company. It’s a performance review on the company, and organizations that don’t conduct some variation of this are not protecting the key to the company’s success: their talent.

Here are six reasons why a company should consider conducting a stay interview:

1. Retain high potential employees – High-potential means future key players…so, it’s important to start the investment early. Great leaders spot these individuals early on in their employment, and to build trust the investment starts before they really begin bringing in revenue. This is an opportunity to demonstrate the company cares about more than just performance. Regular stay interviews help ensure staff is happy, challenged and feeling valued.
2. Avoid costly turnover – The cost of turnover includes a few things. It’s the amount of money spent training the new hire, as well as the cost of company profitably in terms of the hours a manager spends training them rather than working and producing. Then there are the hours spent recruiting and interviewing to refill the spot. Plus, when there suddenly is a vacant position that wasn’t planned for, the company is short staffed so someone has to do the tasks of that role until it’s filled, taking time away from their main projects. This also goes far past the monetary impact turnover has on a company, but the cost of employee morale.
3. Engage staff – Sometimes talking about why you like working for an organization reignites passion that may have been dormant. Stay interviews are the perfect forum for staff to remember exactly why they enjoy working for the organization.
4. Identify motivators – Companies can’t incentivize or retain staff effectively if they don’t know what motivates them. Every employee has something different that motivates them, and the biggest mistakes managers make is assuming they are the same for every employee. Stay interviews address motivators, as well as factors that may tempt someone to leave if they are not addressed.
5. Pinpoint pain points – Stay interviews are a safe space for employees to share needs that aren’t being met or problems they are having. It’s not a performance review, or a meeting regarding underperformance. It’s a meeting where the ball’s in their court, so they will be more inclined to share the areas of the company they are unhappy with.
6. Warning signs – Stay interviews can surface red flags that a high potential employee may be on their way out, which is why it’s crucial managers don’t wait too long before having them. If the employee has been having a negative experience with something for a while that is easily fixable…it may be too late for a manager to adjust the situation.  This is an opportunity to make changes to re-engage the employee early in their employment.

Sirmara Campbell Twohill is Chief Human Resources Officer at LaSalle Network and has over 15 years of experience in the staffing and recruiting industry, starting her career at LaSalle Network shortly after its inception. Founded in 1998, LaSalle has served thousands of clients and candidates, placing job seekers in temporary, temporary-to-permanent and permanent positions.  LaSalle Network was an Inner City 100 winner in 2011 and 2013.  LaSalle Network has also been listed on Inc. Magazine’s 500/5000 Fastest Growing Companies in America list for the past eight years, list by Crain’s Chicago Business among the 2014 Best Places to Work, named by Staffing Industry Analysts’ as a top five “Best Staffing Firms to Work For” from 2011 through 2013, and among the “Fastest Growing Staffing Firms” in 2012 and 2013.