How to Conduct Employee Retention Interviews

"Retention interviews are potentially the most powerful tool you can use to influence employee’s decision whether to stay or leave their position." Wes Pruett

One study reported that 86% of employees plan to pursue new jobs and employee turnover is on the rise and is expected to continue to worsen over time. In addition, over 60% of companies report having difficulty recruiting key talent. Most companies see retention as a key strategic imperative but less than half have a specific retention plan. Unfortunately most retention efforts are overly general, are expensive, and have little positive impact on turnover.

Stay/retention interviews offer a specific, targeted, and effective solution to the turnover problem. Rather than throwing money at the problem this tactic gets at the source of the retention issues by determining why each employee is likely to stay or leave and then develops an effective plan to retain valuable employees.

This webinar provides specific and useable tools for conducting stay interviews in your company. The core of the toolkit is actual interview questions in ten key areas. This process leads to a plan of action that increases the probability of retaining valuable employees. The Retention Toolkit gets at the source of the problem and allows managers and employees to work collaboratively to create realistic plan of action.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn a system for tracking retention in relation to risk of leaving and employee performance
• Understand the real cost of turnover
• Understand the factors of why employees stay and why they leave
• Understand the cycle of a retention plan and the important metrics to measure
• Understand the link between employee satisfaction, motivation, and engagement and how it relates to stay interviews
• Learn why retention interviews are vastly superior to exit interviews
• Learn how to hold managers accountable for retention
• Learn the 5 essential communication steps in the interview process
• Understand the process of using the retention interview toolkit
• Learn how to set the stage for an effective interview
• Learn how to actually conduct the retention interview
• Learn the a specific process for conducting interviews
• Receive questions linked to the 10 essential retention factors
• Receive a toolkit for actually conducting stay interviews

Reasons to Attend:

• Participants will learn the specific steps and receive the necessary materials to conducting an effective retention interview
• Stay interviews are a proven method of decreasing turnover and increasing retention.
• Turnover across the country has been increasing and is expected to continue to increase resulting in increased costs and reduced company effectiveness.
• CEOs have identified employee retention as a critical business imperative and stay interviews offer a targeted and specific solution to turnover.
• Stay interviews have the benefit of increasing employee motivation, engagement, development, and empowerment.
• Retention interviews offer a targeted process for focusing retention efforts on high impact employees
• Stay interviews identify areas of retention risk and a proactive solution for managing risk.

Participants will receive a toolkit for actually conducting stay interviews. The toolkit will contain:

• Supervisor’s pre-interview form to set the stage for the interview
• Staff retention interview questionnaire
• Retention Interview Form with specific questions in 10 key areas including an individualized retention plan for each employee

Who will Benefit: Managers, supervisors, HR professionals, employee development professionals

Wes Pruett

Wes Pruett is the owner of HR Advisors LLC, a consulting practice that provides service to clients who seek to align their business and employees, creating successful outcomes and excellent work environments. After 20 years in senior leadership within the Mayo Health System, he founded HR Advisors.

Wes Pruett provides solutions to companies for a wide variety of HR issues including compensation, compliance, policy development, performance management, and employee relations. He regularly facilitates employee training related to communication, leadership, coaching and strategic planning. He is a certified business coach credentialed by the International Coach Federation and an authorized provider of Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team and Everything DiSC.

Wes Pruett earned a Masters in Healthcare Administration at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management and an M.S. in Psychology.