Stay Interview Toolkit

This toolkit includes a framework with information that is useful for both supervisors and supervisees and Student Affairs encourages its use by both.

  • Supervisors: to prepare and conduct Stay Interviews with their supervisees.
  • Supervisees: to prepare for and understand the Stay Interview process.

Stay Interview Steps

Reflecting on your role

When planning for Stay Interviews, it is important for both the supervisor and supervisee to reflect on their respective role(s) within the team, unit, and the division.

Supervisors

Some questions for supervisors to ask themselves as they prepare for Stay Interviews include:

  • What biases and power dynamics are at play and influence how I am showing up and experiencing this supervisory relationship?
  • What cultural norms, practices, and social dynamics do we have in the workplace that influence this supervisory relationship?
  • What other factors might influence how I am showing up to this Stay Interview?
  • What am I doing to earn trust with this employee?

Supervisees

Some questions for supervisees to ask themselves as they prepare for Stay Interviews include:

  • What biases and power dynamics are at play and influence how I am showing up and experiencing my relationship with my supervisor and colleagues?

  • What cultural norms, practices, and social dynamics do we have in the workplace that influence my relationship with my supervisor and colleagues?

  • What other factors might influence how I am showing up to this Stay Interview? 

Communicating about Stay Interviews with employees

Supervisors should set expectations with their teams in advance of scheduling Stay Interviews in their unit, including:

  • Sharing what Stay Interviews are and their purpose – Emphasizing the focus should be on subject matters within our control
  • Explaining how individual Stay Interviews will be scheduled and planned with each employee and what you seek to explore during those meetings
  • Sending Stay Interview questions one week prior to allow the employee time to reflect and prepare

Time and place

Make Stay Interviews a routine part of your team culture. These should be performed once a year, but can be more frequent if desired by the supervisor and/or employee.

Other considerations for planning include:

  • A 30 (no more than 45) minute meeting time is suggested.
  • Conduct Stay Interviews individually. They should not be conducted with a group of employees at the same time.
  • If possible, conduct Stay Interviews in person. Consider a neutral location that will make the employee feel most comfortable.
  • Do not wait until there is a noticeable morale problem to schedule Stay Interviews.

Planning your Stay Interview questions

In preparation for the Stay Interview, develop questions to structure the conversation. Questions should be sent to the employee at least one week prior to the meeting (see stay interview template). Keep in mind:

  • Questions should be open ended and may need to be followed up with further exploratory questions (avoid yes/no questions).
  • Keeping questions consistent among employees may help you identify possible trends.

Supervisors can use the core questions below to guide the 30-minute meeting. While supervisors should customize follow-up questions based on what they believe will elicit the most impactful information from their team member(s), using these five core questions (or a variation) can help with a consistent and equitable application of the process. When in doubt on what follow-up question to use, ask the employee to “Tell me more…”.

When you are ready to conduct the Stay Interview, use the questions you identified in the previous step and follow the best practices below to get the most out of your interview.

For supervisors: Best practices for the conversation

Be honest

  • Emphasize that the focus will be on things you and they can directly influence (although you will listen to all concerns).
  • If there is something the employee brings up that the manager cannot change, it’s important to inform the employee of that. Be transparent about what you can or can’t do to remedy a situation, being careful not to overpromise and underdeliver. 

Listen

  • Enter the meeting with a commitment to listen to your employee. Don’t guide the conversation into what you want to hear, or get defensive if the employee shares a perspective you do not agree with.
  • Use eye contact, body language, and verbal responses to show your active listening.
  • Repeat what you are hearing back to the employee.
    • Clarify understanding by offering: “Let me tell you what I heard you say to see if I got it right,” and then repeat the message you heard.

Believe

  • Believe employees’ experiences as they’re reported and resist the urge to question why because you may not understand or have a different experience yourself.

Explore

  • Explore and ask follow-up questions to get deeper into responses that are not clear or may have more behind them.

Take notes

  • These notes will be helpful as you develop a Stay Plan (if applicable) with the employee following the interview.

For supervisees: Best practices for the conversation

Adequately prepare

Employees should ask themselves the following questions and reflect before the Stay Interview to prepare for the questions that may come up:

  • Am I happy with my job?
  • Is my job fulfilling or not, and why?
  • What things about my work environment would I want to see change?
  • What do I want as an employee?
  • Do I have the resources/tools I need to perform my job effectively?

Be honest

  • Give an honest response about your passions while incorporating how those passions relate to your professional career.

Take notes and follow up

  • Take good notes in order to be mutually accountable with developing a Stay Plan as a result of the Stay Interview.
  • A Stay Interview offers an opportunity to make your job and your workplace better. Embrace the opportunity and build on the success of your stay interview.

What you do after the Stay Interview is just as (if not more) important as the interview itself. Following up on items you learned during the Stay Interview will be vital for employee engagement, retention, and trust. Supervisors should develop an action plan following the Stay Interview. This action plan should include how to capitalize on items that keep employees engaged and satisfied in their role and reflect on things less satisfying to determine if changes may and could be appropriate.

Stay Plans

The most effective way to create accountability following the Stay Interview is to create a Stay Plan (see Stay Plan Template). Stay Plans work best when they are co-created with the employee. The employee and supervisor should both agree to the Stay Plan content.

Creating Stay Plans

The co-created Stay Plan should include:

  • No more than three initiatives to facilitate the employee’s engagement/retention
  • Action(s) the supervisor will take to support each initiative
  • Action(s) the employee will take to support each initiative
  • Dates for accomplishing each initiative

Key terms/phrases defined:

  • Stay factors – positive work characteristics affecting job satisfaction, engagement and commitment.
  • Concerns – problematic work issues that may impact an employee’s decision to stay
  • Initiative – specific request requiring action by the supervisor and/or employee to resolve concern(s).

Monitoring and updating Stay Plans

  • Ensure that the Stay Interview and Stay Plan are documented.
  • It is the shared responsibility of the supervisor and employee to engage with the Stay Plan and keep it updated as appropriate. Stay Plans should reside in a location that both the supervisor and employee have easy access to view throughout the year and be in a form that can be adjusted as necessary (Google doc, shared drive, etc.).
  • While Student Affairs Talent Management is here to support the creation of Stay Plans, the co-created plan is not something that needs to be approved by or submitted to Talent Management and/or HR.

Other Follow-Up Actions

The Stay Plan is just one example of a documentation method. Supervisors and employees should utilize a format that works best for them and their next steps. Stay Plans may not be appropriate for all employees and some employees may not feel comfortable engaging in these plans, and that is okay.

It is still important for supervisors to take what they learned in the Stay Interview and create their own plan to help them continue to support their employee’s satisfaction and engagement. Supervisors and employees should utilize a format that works best for them and their next steps.

Stay Interview Questions

Ask this question to bring the employee’s mind to the present and help set a baseline for what aspects of the employee’s work they enjoy or dislike.

+ Question 1 variations

  • What about your job makes you want to get out of bed in the morning?
  • What do you value most about working for (Department/Student Affairs/UGA)?
  • Are there aspects of your job or work environment that bring you joy and inspiration? Are there aspects that do the opposite?
  • What aspects of the job that you do for Student Affairs bring out the best in you?
  • What makes for a great day of work? What makes for a bad day of work?
  • Do you feel a sense of purpose in your job? If so, what is most meaningful to you?

+ Follow-ups for question 1

  • Is there a way to structure the job to ensure more of this happens more often?
  • What conditions need to be present for you to do your best?
  • What actions could you take to bring out your best work?
  • Describe the view of the team-based work environment here. What words best capture the teamwork environment? Please explain your answer.
    • What is the one thing you could do to strengthen the team environment here?
    • What is the one thing I could do to strengthen the team environment here?

Ask this question to get an understanding of the employee’s development progress and needs. Employee development is vitally important for engaging employees and influencing them to stay.

+ Question 2 variations

  • Is there something new you want to learn this year?

+ Follow-ups for question 2

  • How do you learn best (By doing? By observing? By attending trainings?)? Do you feel like you could advance your career here if you wanted to?
  • To what extent do you feel “fully utilized” in your current role? Can you identify the factors that make you feel fully utilized? What about aspects of your job that make you feel underutilized?
  • Are there additional things that we as an organization or that you could do to take advantage of your talents and interests more fully?
  • What are your short-term and long-term development goals?
    • What career future do you see for yourself here?
    • What skills and knowledge do you see yourself developing or strengthening over the next several years?
    • What actions do you see yourself taking to help you move towards these developmental goals?
    • Is there anything you’d like to learn but haven’t yet?

Ask this question to unlock the unique reasons the employee wants to be a part of the organization.

+ Question 3 variations

  • Do you ever think, “I love my job”? If so, when was the last time you said it what were the circumstances surrounding that?

+ Follow-ups for question 3

  • Is that the only reason?
  • How much does the type of work you do impact your decision to stay?
  • How much do you stay because you like working with our students and/or our team?

Ask this question to uncover key reasons that contribute to the employee’s likelihood of leaving and how those reasons might be addressed to prevent their departure.

+ Question 4 variations

  • If something were to happen in your job or if you were presented with a job opportunity outside of the organization – either of which might give you a reason to consider leaving us – what might that reason be?

+ Follow-ups for question 4

  • If you’ve thought about leaving the team and there was something specific that prompted it, does this still concern you?
  • What can I do to make your experience better at work for you?
    • What can I do more of? Less of?
    • Do you feel like I truly hear your concerns when you have them?

Ask this question to get at the core pain points an employee may be experiencing, and at the same time bring the conversation back around to a constructive angle for fostering retention. Here, the supervisor encourages the employees to consider an ideal scenario and describe what could be done to bring their current situation more in line with these desires.

+ Question 5 variations

  • What do you need from me to do your best work?
  • What can I do to support bringing out your best?
  • Do you feel a sense of belonging, support, and trust at work?

+ Follow-ups for question 5

  • What kind of feedback or recognition would you like about your performance that you aren’t currently receiving?
  • What do you need to experience belonging, support and trust?
  • What aspects of your job do you find the most stressful?
    • Is there a way to structure the job such that these stressful parts can be reduced or eliminated?
    • What actions could you take to reduce/eliminate these stressors?
    • What can I do to reduce/eliminate these stressors?
  • If you were to suggest one change to your work or the work environment here that, if this was implemented, would enhance your level of engagement, what would that change be?
  • Is there anything else that you could tell me that, if I knew this, would help me better understand what brings out your best performance and better understand how I can be helpful in supporting you?

Frequently Asked Questions

  • This toolkit is for both supervisors and their supervisees.
  • Supervisors can use the toolkit to plan and conduct Stay Interviews that follow best practices.
  • Supervisees can read through the toolkit to understand what their supervisor will do during their Stay Interview. There are also best practices outlined in the toolkit specifically for supervisees.

Yes, a Stay Interview is different from a performance evaluation. It is not a performance evaluation.

A Stay Interview should not focus on an employee’s performance specifically. It is more of an opportunity to discuss aspects of the organization and job responsibilities that are influencing the employee to stay in their current position, to explore ways that Student Affairs can better engage them in their work, and explore strategies to mitigate any triggers that may cause the employee to consider leaving.

A 30-minute meeting time is suggested for Stay Interviews.

It is a best practice to have a Stay Interview once per year. An ideal time would be between the Spring and Fall semesters, outside of a supervisory meeting around performance.

For additional support, reach out to Kathryn Kay, Director for Talent Management.