How to Conduct Effective Stay Interviews for Talent Retention

When you have strong talent on your startup team, the last thing you want is to only learn why they’re unhappy after they’re already out the door. In order to keep high performers engaged and motivated, it’s important to check in regularly to collect feedback. 

To help retain top talent, many founders conduct stay interviews to learn what’s working well on their teams and where there are opportunities for improvement.

Below, you’ll find a list of questions you can use when conducting stay interviews. We recommend selecting four or five of the 10 questions below to keep the interviews short in length and not too demanding of your team’s time. (Think 20 minutes max per interview.) “It’s a good idea to conduct these interviews once a year in tandem with engagement surveys,” shared our VP of Culture, Madeline Minshew. 

We deeply thank the team at True Portfolio company Hatch and its people team for contributing insights to this question list. 

Stay Interview Questions

• Why do you stay here at the company?
• What’s your favorite part of your job?
• Are you provided with the opportunities for learning and growth you need?
• What allows you to do your best work at the company?
• What about your job, or the company more broadly, do you wish you could change?
• What support do you need from me as your manager?
• What will make you want to stay here for the next one, three, and five years?
• How do you feel about your work and relationships with colleagues?
• If you ever thought of leaving, what prompted it?
• What else would you like to share with us that could help us give you what you need to succeed?

Additional Questions to Incorporate As Needed Per Individual

• What do you think of your overall performance?
• What do you think are your personal strengths?
• Where do you think your performance could improve?
• Five years from now, where do you see yourself in your career?
• What can we do better to continue to foster your development and growth?
• What types of assignments or developmental activities would challenge you?
• What responsibilities, assignments, or projects within your current role can be challenging?
• What do you need from me to continue to grow?
• What knowledge or skills would you like to develop?
• Do you feel all of your personal strengths are being utilized?

Tips for Conducting Stay Interviews

Stay interviews should feel like comfortable conversations set upon a foundation of curiosity. Ask your team members the same questions across the board so you can identify themes and listen for cultural health signals. Here are some other tips to help you develop an effective stay interview process:

• Differentiate stay interviews from performance reviews, and communicate that nothing shared will be punitive.
• After you’ve conducted a round of stay interviews, consider updating your team about some of your overall findings and what you’ve learned.
• If you’re going to be making changes as a result of the stay interviews, let your team know what to expect, and approximately when.