Stay Interview Questions: A Practical Guide for People Managers

A manager asks, “How are things?” An employee says, “Fine.” The meeting moves to deadlines, and a concern about working here remains unspoken.

Stay interview questions give that concern somewhere to go. They help managers explore what employees value, what is wearing them down and what would make staying feel worthwhile. The useful outcome is a clearer understanding of someone’s experience, followed by a few actions they can see.

This guide offers ten questions, a suggested 30-minute conversation and a way to follow through without promising more than you can deliver.

A stay interview is a conversation with a current employee about the factors influencing their decision to remain with an organisation. NHS Employers describes stay conversations as a way to understand what is working and what could improve before an employee has decided to leave.

Keep the meeting separate from a performance review. Employees need to understand that the agenda is their experience of work. There should be no expectation that they promise to stay for a particular period.

Send a short invitation explaining the purpose and share the questions in advance. Choose a private setting and switch off notifications. UW–Madison’s stay interview guidance recommends advance preparation, a comfortable location and clear follow-up steps.

Explain how you will handle notes, who may see them and which concerns may need to go through an established reporting process. Avoid promising absolute confidentiality. Let the employee know they can decline a question or ask for a different conversation partner.

A simple opening could be:

“I’d like to understand what makes work here worthwhile for you and what needs attention. I’ll take a few notes on the issues and actions we discuss, and check them with you. Some changes are within my control; others need a decision from someone else. We’ll agree what happens next.”

Read your organisation’s relevant policies first so you can explain those boundaries accurately.

Choose four or five for one meeting. Leave room for follow-up questions rather than trying to finish the list.

Start with what is worth keeping

1. Which part of a recent working week would you most like to have more of? Ask what made that moment worthwhile. It might involve the task, the people or the freedom to make a decision.
2. What would you miss most if you moved to another organisation? Listen for specific conditions you should protect as the team changes.

Explore what makes staying harder

3. Which recurring part of your week takes more out of you than it should? Ask for a recent example so you can understand the practical problem.
4. What has changed here that has made the job less appealing? Give the employee time to describe the change without immediately defending its intention.
5. Is there anything about working here that makes you question whether you want to stay? Make clear that sharing job-search activity, offers or personal circumstances is optional.

Understand the future they want

6. What experience would you like to gain here over the next year? Explore what progress would look like to them, including options beyond promotion.
7. Where could we make better use of something you enjoy doing? Ask whether a different assignment or an opportunity to learn would help.

Find a useful next step

8. What could I change in how I work with you that would improve your week? Listen for a behaviour you can act on.
9. If we could address one concern from this conversation first, which would matter most? Let the employee help set the priority.
10. What would you need to see happen to feel that this conversation was useful? Use the answer to make the follow-up concrete.

Useful prompts include “When did that last happen?” and “What happened next?” Avoid turning every answer into a request for the employee to solve the problem themselves.

Treat this timing as a starting point you can adapt:

• First five minutes: explain the purpose, privacy boundaries and how follow-up will work.
• Next fifteen minutes: explore selected questions and ask for examples. Resist the urge to offer a solution before you understand the concern.
• Next five minutes: summarise the main positive and the most important difficulty. Ask what you have missed or misunderstood.
• Final five minutes: agree the first action, its owner and a date for the next update.

If a serious concern emerges, pause the planned questions. Explain the appropriate next step under your organisation’s process. A sensitive disclosure should not have to compete with finishing the agenda.

A written recap can be brief. The UW–Madison School of Medicine and Public Health toolkit recommends agreeing a small number of initiatives with the employee, including actions and dates.

For each priority, record:

• What you heard: the employee’s concern in plain language, checked with them
• What happens next: a specific action or decision to seek
• Who owns it: the person responsible for moving it forward
• When you will update them: a date you can keep
• What improvement would look like: something both of you can recognise

Distinguish between an action you can approve and a request you can only raise. For example, “I’ll bring the proposed schedule to the operations lead on Tuesday” is a commitment you can own. “You’ll get the schedule you want” may depend on authority you do not have.

If a request cannot be approved, explain the decision and any alternatives. Leave room for the employee to say that the alternative does not meet their need. Good listening does not require agreement, and an honest limit is still useful information.

Imagine a client-services employee says they enjoy customer work but are considering leaving because late requests repeatedly disrupt their evenings. Their manager initially suggests a training course. The employee explains that development is welcome, but predictable finishing times matter more right now.

They agree to a two-week trial of a daily cutoff for routine requests, subject to the team’s service commitments. The manager owns arranging coverage and confirming which requests genuinely need an evening response. They also agree to check whether the change simply shifts the burden to another colleague.

At the review, they compare actual evenings worked and discuss whether the employee’s experience has improved. If coverage prevented the trial from working, the manager explains that and takes the staffing question to the person who can decide it.

This is an illustrative scenario, not a SoulEra client case or evidence of a retention result.

Offer the conversation consistently across the team, including quieter employees and people who are not asking for a promotion. Give managers a clear route for issues they cannot resolve themselves.

Review whether agreed updates happened and whether employees found the actions useful. Look for recurring concerns across conversations, while limiting access to identifiable notes and avoiding details that expose individuals in small teams.

Resignation trends can add context over time, but a change in turnover alone cannot establish that stay interviews caused it. Keep the immediate question practical: did listening lead to a response the employee could understand?

How often should managers hold stay interviews?

A six-monthly conversation is a reasonable starting point. Adapt the timing to the team and significant changes, and keep action updates on their own agreed dates. Do not wait for the next interview to follow through.

What if the employee says everything is fine?

Accept the answer. Ask what is working well and worth protecting, then leave an open invitation to return to the conversation. Pressuring someone to produce a complaint defeats the purpose.

Should HR or the manager conduct the interview?

A manager can often act directly on everyday working conditions. If the employee is uncomfortable speaking to that manager, offer an appropriate alternative through HR or another trusted route.

Do stay interviews prevent resignations?

They can reveal concerns and inform action. They cannot guarantee that someone will stay, and an employee may still choose to leave after a thoughtful response.

Start with a few good questions and reserve time for what comes after them. Before closing the meeting, make sure both people know the next action and when they will hear about it.