Hiring Interviews, exit interviews...why not stay interview?
Interviews are the most human, the most interesting and the least automated part of the hiring process. In the hiring process which flows like a funnel - you receive a lot of applications, you separate the promising from the unwanted, you might do a phone screen before eventually meeting a handful before finally figuring out which is the best of them to hire.
Exit interviews are common in business environments. For an employee leaving voluntarily, the most important question is "Why?" For example, if you start hearing that many employees have left because the job was not what they expected to do when hired, it may be time to audit your job descriptions and/or hiring practices. Other reasons may motivate employers to review management practices, pay scales and benefits…alongwith several other issues. Ideally, exit interviews should be conducted by an outside third party and at least two weeks after an employee’s departure to uncover the true, root cause of why the employee left. Although exit interviews are often company policy, they are always voluntary. Hence, the exiting employee can decline to participate - in which case, one may never know why the employee left. Worst of all however, is when you begin to wish you knew what you could have done to keep a departing employee? Too late though.
Almost everyone in the business of hiring and firing would say that employee retention is easier than recruiting. Unfortunately, with so many employees leaving in not so insignificant numbers, this is far from reality. Richard Finnegan, author of the book titled ‘The Stay Interview’, argues that unlike exit interviews which are like talking to cows about why they left the barn, the stay interview asks why employees remain with you. Finnegan goes on to add, “Hard data proves the top reason employees quit is they don’t trust their managers. Stay Interviews are the absolute best trust-building activity…and therefore the best retention tool.” Just as an exit interview would invariably focus on the ‘why are you leaving?’ question, a stay interview would simply ask ‘what makes you stay?’ Carried out properly, it can be a part of an effective engagement and retention strategy.
As Danny Nelms – President of Work Institute puts it “Stay interviews are intended to get employees to stay longer and exit interviews are intended to uncover root causes of turnover. Some erroneously describe a stay interview as the opposite of an exit interview. Stay interviews and exit interviews are not mere opposites. Instead, they should work together to capture the unique voice of employees at different stages of the employee experience.
For the great majority of Organisations, stay interviews, which could be the most important interview any company could ever have, is less known and even less spoken about. Whether a company uses stay interviews or some other method, getting managers talking to employees leads to better worker engagement and reduced attrition. Regrettably, talking to employees does not come naturally to most managers – it’s a task outside the manager’s comfort zone. So institutionalizing a program of stay interviews may be necessary.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier |
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