A stay interview is a conversation with an employee who is still working for your organization. You don’t ask why someone is leaving, but why someone is staying, what works well and what could be a reason for them to leave in the long run. This way, HR gets a better understanding of what binds employees together and of any problems that can still be resolved.
That makes a stay interview a practical part of your job. Retention strategy. You don’t wait until the dismissal letter is on the table, but have the conversation while there is still room to improve something.
What is a stay interview?
A stay interview is a planned one-on-one conversation between an employee and their manager. The goal is to understand what parts of the job someone would like to keep and what circumstances increase the chance that they will eventually look for another employer.
The conversation, for example, concerns:
- pleasure and frustrations in daily work;
- the relationship with the manager and colleagues;
- development and career opportunities;
- work pressure and practical obstacles;
- recognition and appreciation;
- reasons to stay;
- Possible reasons for leaving.
A stay interview is therefore not an assessment interview. The employee does not have to prove anything. The manager listens first and tries to understand what is important to this employee.
Stay interview versus exit interview: what is the difference?
An exit conversation It occurs when someone has already decided to leave. The organization can learn a lot from this, but for that specific employee, action often comes too late.
A stay interview It takes place while someone is still employed. This allows you to discover earlier what is working well, where frustration arises, and what changes could be beneficial.
| Stay interview | Exit interview |
| Employee is still employed | Employee has decided to leave |
| Focused on keeping what works well | Focused on learning from the departure |
| Space to discuss and address problems | Opportunities to influence the decision are limited |
| Personal conversation about current experience | Review of the entire employee journey |
Both conversations are valuable. If you want to signal earlier that employees are leaving, read also which Pre-signals can precede an exit conversation.
15 good questions for a stay interview
| 1 | What do you look forward to the most on a normal workday? |
| 2 | What makes you want to work at this organization? |
| 3 | If you had to name one main reason why you stay here, what would that be? |
| 4 | When was the last time you felt truly appreciated at work? |
| 5 | Which contribution from you do you think is not being seen enough? |
| 6 | Which part of your work makes your workday unnecessarily difficult? |
| 7 | When was the last time you thought that you might want to work somewhere else? |
| 8 | What could be a reason for you to leave this organization? |
| 9 | Do you have enough opportunities to learn and develop yourself? |
| 10 | Is there any work that you would like to do more often? |
| 11 | What do you need from me as a manager to be able to do your job better? |
| 12 | Feel free to discuss problems, mistakes, and concerns with me or the team? |
| 13 | What works well in collaboration with colleagues and what could be improved? |
| 14 | Which form of appreciation suits you best? |
| 15 | If we could improve one thing for you in the next three months, what would be the most important thing? |
You don't have to ask all fifteen questions in every conversation. Choose questions that suit the employee and ask questions when an answer is interesting or unclear.
How do you conduct a good stay interview?
The questions are only part of the conversation. The way you listen and follow up determines how much you get out of it.
Explain in advance why you are having the conversation
An unexpected invitation to a ‘HR interview’ can cause unnecessary tension.
Say for example: I want to better understand what works well for you in your work and what things we can improve. This is not an evaluation meeting. I especially want to hear from you what is important.
Let the employee talk most of the time
Do not enter any answers and do not try to immediately refute criticism. A manager who explains after every improvement point why things work the way they do, will not gain much new insight.
Ask instead: Can you give an example of that?
or: What would make a noticeable difference for you?
Ask about concrete situations
“I am receiving little appreciation” is an important sign, but not yet a concrete diagnosis.
Ask when someone last noticed that. Which work remained unaddressed? According to the employee, what could the manager have done differently? This is how you make an abstract theme concrete and usable.
Only promise what you can keep
A stay interview creates expectations. If you cannot change a salary, position, or schedule immediately, be clear about that. Then, look at which parts are negotiable.
An honest answer is better than a promise that the employee is still waiting for months later.
Come back to what has been discussed
Without follow-up, a stay interview can backfire. Therefore, schedule a moment to briefly return to the most important appointment. This shows that the interview is part of the way you lead and not a separate HR action.
What does HR do with the answers from the stay interviews?
Individual conversations can reveal broader organizational patterns. Suppose employees from different teams return to the same issues: little feedback, unclear career development opportunities, high administrative pressure, or appreciation that focuses primarily on the most visible colleagues. Then there is likely more than just an individual problem at hand.
For example, HR can group the results into four levels:
- Individually: What does this employee need?
- Team: Which themes will recur within a single team?
- Leadership: What support do managers need?
- Organization: Which processes or HR choices deserve adaptation?
Combine qualitative insights from interviews with other signals wherever possible. Think of turnover, internal mobility, employee surveys, and data on engagement. In this article you will learn how to Track employee engagement with concrete KPIs.
Be mindful of privacy here. The value lies in patterns and actions, not in an overview of which employee has given which criticism exactly.
From listening to structural appreciation
Stay interviews regularly reveal one problem: employees do not necessarily lack large rewards, but rather the sense that their daily contribution is appreciated.
That requires more than one annual meeting.
An employee who helps new colleagues during a busy period does not want to hear six months later that it was “a good year”. Good recognition acknowledges what someone did, what that effect was and why that contribution was important.
For example: Thank you for taking the new colleague with you yesterday in the workflow. This allowed the team to continue working during the busy times without them having to do it alone.
This type of concrete appreciation helps to clarify what behavior within the organization is seen and appreciated.
If you want to make appreciation less dependent on individual managers, then a valuation platform help to organize recognition, milestones, and personal rewards in a more structured way.
JobRewards supports organizations by making recognition visible and scalable. HR and managers can link recognition to concrete moments, behaviors, and HR goals. The stay interview remains the human conversation; the platform then helps to systematically apply the insights from those conversations.
Stay interviews are not a guarantee that employees will stay
Not every departure is unavoidable. Sometimes someone wants to learn a different skill, relocate, earn more, or simply take the next step outside the organization. The goal of stay interviews is therefore not to keep every employee at any cost.
The value lies in listening first. You discover which parts of the organization people would like to keep, where unnecessary frustrations arise, and what improvements are within your sphere of influence. With this, the stay interview forms a practical addition to a broader approach for employee retention.
Would you like to look further into the role of recognition in retention? Then read this as well. whether appreciation can actually contribute to retaining employees.
For HR teams that want to substantiate the investment in structural valuation internally, the whitepaper on the business case for valuation a logical follow-up.