4 Ways Stay Interviews Improve Retention and Reduce Turnover

With the rising turnover rates, companies cannot afford to ignore how stay interviews improve retention. 

In December of last year, we saw the worrying figure of nearly one quarter (23%) of workers in the UK planning to leave their jobs within the short term – a 3% increase from 2023 (Culture Amp).  

Now, more than ever, organisations are constantly searching for ways to improve retention and engagement.  

But what does that look like?  

In our 30 years of experience, we’ve seen the benefits that a well-thought-out stay interview process can yield firsthand. Stay interviews focus on retaining current employees by understanding their motivations, concerns, and needs.  

By unlocking the power of stay interviews, businesses can gain valuable insights into what truly drives their employees to stay and thrive within the organisation. 

Stay interviews are a proactive approach to employee engagement, enabling employers to identify potential issues and address them well before they become reasons for an employee to leave, what we refer to as a “flight risk”.  

This process involves open and honest conversations between employees and interviewers, fostering a sense of connection, trust, and loyalty.  

Through stay interviews, organisations can personalise their retention strategies, offer development opportunities, and create a positive work environment that both attracts and retains top talent. 

On paper, this sounds easy.  

But fostering these open and honest conversations in-house between employees and managers is more complex in practice… Internal biases, time constraints, and inconsistent follow-up can all get in the way.  

That’s why outsourcing stay interviews to a third party is a strategic move—it ensures the process is objective, structured, and results in actionable insights that drive real change. 

So, how exactly do stay interviews achieve these outcomes? Here are four key ways they help improve retention and reduce turnover:

 

4 Ways Stay Interviews Improve Retention and Reduce Turnover

 

1. Unlock Valuable Employee Insights

Stay interviews provide an opportunity for organisations to understand the true reasons employees stay and what might cause them to leave. These interviews offer deeper insights than engagement surveys, allowing businesses to get to the heart of employee motivations, concerns, and needs. As our Executive Chairman Ian Gooden puts it in our blog, Stay Interviews: Five Things to Consider:  

“Engagement surveys are like a wide angled lens. Stay interviews are more of a magnifying glass.” 

By gaining these insights, businesses can craft targeted retention strategies tailored to their employees’ unique motivations.

2. Detect Flight Risks Early

A critical advantage of stay interviews is the ability to identify “flight risks” early. Our expert, UK-based interviewers help employers spot potential issues before they escalate, giving them a chance to intervene before employees decide to leave. We help businesses to measure flight risk by categorising employees into three groups:

• 🔴 Actively Looking – High risk of leaving
• 🟠 Curious – Open to opportunities
• 🟢 Not Looking – Secure, but may need engagement

This early detection system empowers leadership to act quickly, offering the chance to address concerns and prevent turnover.

3. Foster Honest, Unfiltered Feedback

Stay interviews conducted by a neutral third party, like Chiumento, create a safe space for employees to share their true thoughts. Without fear of repercussions, employees feel more comfortable providing honest and transparent feedback. This creates a more authentic understanding of the challenges employees are facing and allows HR teams to address these issues directly.

By gathering unfiltered feedback, businesses can better understand their employees’ needs and motivations.

4. Create Actionable Next Steps

After conducting stay interviews, it’s essential to translate the gathered feedback into actionable steps. This is where the value of our structured reports comes in. By combining both quantitative metrics and qualitative insights, we empower organisations to pinpoint specific areas that need improvement. These actionable insights guide HR teams in creating targeted retention strategies, which can directly reduce turnover and increase employee engagement.

 

Ready to Retain Your Top Talent?  

 

Let’s work together to keep your best talent. Get in touch with us to arrange a free, no-obligation conversation today.