It’s time to show exit interviews the door
Stay interviews serve as an employee retention tool. More and more companies are now using it to ensure they don’t lose their valuable employees
Exit interviews are becoming common. They may
help a company realise what corrective measures are necessary to retain talent.
But, isn’t it better to wake up to the
situation before it’s too late? Why should it take a skilled employee to leave,
for a company to get wiser?
That’s where stay interviews come in. Stay
interviews are a relatively underused retention tool, but things are looking
up. More and more companies are now warming up to it.
Now, the basics. What are stay interviews?
They are a continuous process of enquiry that enables the management to find
out how engaged and happy their valuable employees are, thereby pre-empting the
possibility of them leaving the organisation. It is a proactive step and is not
to be confused with trying to retain an employee who has decided to leave.
A stay interview may help a company find out
the factors that have made an employee stay in the organisation for the
duration he/she has and reinforce those factors.
“Around 2000-06, when there was a boom in
ITeS sector, retaining talent was harder.
With many opportunities beckoning them, employees
in the sector changed jobs frequently.
This forced companies to assess level of
employee engagement across their workforce.
Based on this assessment, employees were
marker in amber and red (those likely to leave). Yet, most companies were not
sure of the action that needed to be taken to ensure all the reds changed to
amber. Over a period of time, some companies evolved action plans to improve
employee engagement and retention. Stay interviews were part of these action
plans,” says Aditya Narayan Mishra, CEO, CIEL HR Services.
The idea is to connect with employees to
understand their needs and address their concerns.
This kind of feedback system can also help
managers convey to an employee about how important he/she is for the success of
the organisation.
“The ideal situation is to have an early
warning system where the manager is informed about the drop in the engagement
level of an employee so that he/she can intervene, take remedial action and
ensure the employee does not leave,” says Aditya.
Companies such as HSBC, RPG Group and
Hexaware Techonologies have been conducting stay interviews, especially for
their top performers.
“Managers need to recognise that this is a
conversation that needs to be held to retain the critical employee. While there
is no set structure to this conversation, managers should cover a few main
areas: the meaningfulness of the work that the employee is doing; the
organisation’s current state; clarity on future roles and career paths. Most
managers don’t plan for such conversation.
Planning this interaction in advance can help
the manager prepare better and be more effective in retaining a critical
employee,” says Amogh Deshmukh, member, Key Leadership Team, DDI India.
In today’s workforce, where communication and
transparency are critical, such open conversations and regular engagement with
employees can go a long way in retaining talent.
Exit interview:
It is conducted with an employee when he/she
is leaving the company. It helps the employer learn the reasons why the
employee wants to leave and use the feedback for organisational improvement.
Stay interview:
It is a continuous process of enquiry that
enables the management to find out how engaged and happy their valuable
employees are, thereby pre-empting the possibility of them leaving the
organisation.
Source | The Hindu | 8 June 2016
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Pralhad
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