Most businesses conduct exit interviews with employees who resign from their positions to help the company understand the reasons why employees seek new opportunities. This traditional process seems to make sense, but in fact, waiting until an employee’s last day to learn why they are dissatisfied really does little to improve morale or increase retention rates. A much more useful approach for reducing turnover – especially in the competitive tech market – is to start conducting “stay” interviews.
Just What Is a “Stay” Interview?
A stay interview is the opposite of an exit interview. In a stay interview, managers identify and sit down with successful, highly-engaged team members a few times a year and discuss the reasons why the employee feels so happy and satisfied with their work. During the interview, managers also seek to identify areas that might trigger those employees to seek out new opportunities in the future.
Why Bother With Stay Interviews?
Stay interviews have a number of benefits for tech employers, including:
- Reinforcing Company Support – Reaching out to engaged employees says, “we notice you’re doing a good job, and we want to know what we can do to keep you engaged in the future.”
- Building Morale – When successful tech employees feel supported and valued, it keeps their morale and motivation high.
- No HR Training Required – Managers do not need specialized training to have a conversation about what’s going well on the job. HR can provide an outline, and the supervisor can take it from there.
- Reinforce Positivity – Exit interviews often focus on the negative. Stay interviews focus on the positive, which is a nice change of pace for both managers and employees. These conversations get everyone thinking about why they like the job and the company, rather than what they do not like.
- Promote Action – The issues uncovered in a stay interview, both positive and negative, help to identify actions the company can take to improve culture, morale and motivation.
- Proactive – When a talented tech employee is in an exit interview chair, it’s too late to do anything. Stay interviews help to identify issues before they trigger a surprise resignation.
In today’s high-demand tech market, talented employees have the luxury of making knee-jerk reactions to bad situations at work. They can simply move on and find something else quickly. Stay interviews allow managers to remain connected to their talented team members and give them the opportunity to reinforce the positive while working to fix the negative.
If your company is experiencing high turnover in its IT department, contact the recruiting experts at Contemporary Staffing Solutions today. Our proven strategies will help improve your sourcing, hiring, and retention processes, setting your IT staff on the course for long-term success.