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This article is the first of a three-part series of excerpts from The Power of Stay Interviews for Engagement and Retention, Second Edition (SHRM, 2018) by Richard P. Finnegan.
Let's start with a definition of "stay interview": a structured discussion a leader conducts with an individual employee to learn specific actions the leader can take to strengthen the employee's engagement and retention with the organization.
You'll notice a core feature of this definition is that leaders conduct stay interviews. "Leader" is defined here as anyone who manages someone, so this term may be synonymous in your organization with executives, managers, supervisors or leads.
There might be times when HR is called on to conduct stay interviews for employees who work outside of human resources, but this should be for exceptional circumstances only. The best outcomes happen when leaders are in the stay interview chair and hear directly from their employees how they wish to be managed for better engagement and retention. And "I'm too busy" is not a legitimate reason for managers to ask HR to conduct stay interviews!
This definition also indicates leaders must conduct stay interviews individually, one-on-one. While it is certainly more efficient to conduct stay interviews in small groups, employees will share less information, particularly information they consider personal to them. Leaders will also face an easy temptation to design group solutions instead of individual...