The one session that most companies dread is the exit interview. For one, the team has to accept losing out on a key resource, and the other, the management has to force itself to hear hard truths about the company, not all of which might be exactly comforting.
To avoid this face-off between the resigning employee and the bosses, a boon-like feature- stay interview is doing the rounds among industry circles. These stay interviews are slowly gaining acceptance among companies cutting across sectors, as seen by a recent survey. So what do these sessions do?
Stay interviews have been formulated so as to obtain feedback from the workforce, which in the long run, would enable employee retention. These sessions that, in the true sense, need to be conducted every six months will allow the management to learn of issues that are of concern to the workers.
According to a popular HR practice report, these stay interviews, as opposed to exit interviews that are conducted at the time of leaving, will be a healthy interaction between the higher echelons and the lower rung employees, when they are well into their jobs.
These meetings can be considered as a win-win situation for both parties, as for the employer, it is an opportunity to take note and fix problems related to compensation, culture or work burden, while for the employee it is a golden chance to inform the bosses that if certain issues are not fixed, then he or she might have to consider quitting.
The biggest benefactor of these interviews would certainly be the company, as it helps in ensuring employee retention, by attempting to influence the worker to 'stay', even before he or she thinks of leaving.
Now that the benefits of stay interviews are large and many, here we present to you a few questions that could prove to be useful in these sessions.
One query that is bound to give a pleasant start to the interview, is asking the employees, what is it that excites them the most about their current jobs. This tactic of a positive beginning might do wonders as the employee might feel hesitant to give negative feedback right away, feel many.
However, the trick is not to continue shying away from the pressing issues, as then it might defeat the very objective of a stay interview. So the rule is to start positively, and proceed with questions like what is the demotivating factor for the employee, and what is it that forces them to consider quitting.
The session can be interspersed with queries on the performance too, which might offer a reality check for the candidate and make him analyse on the quality and quantity of work done so far.
Since team-building is one of the most crucial aspects of the success of any organisation, one that tends to make or break the workforce, there must be ample discussions on this too.
Questions can be asked on the favourite team member, or the one whom he or
she always has a run-in with. According to a survey on stay interviews, quizzing employees on their most memorable day at work and the day that turned out to be the worst in office, will give a whole new perspective for the employer, if it is followed by an analysis of why the said experiences turned out to be so.
Meanwhile, another interesting aspect of the entire stay interview practice is the involvement of a third party. This, many feel, will do wonders for the organisation, as employees tend to open up easily to an outsider, more than to those inside their companies. This is despite assurances that the findings of the interactive session will not affect the candidate's subsequent prospects.
