When a good employee quits, the first thing most managers do is schedule an exit interview. That's like scheduling the autopsy — useful for understanding what happened, useless for preventing it. By the time someone submits a resignation, they've been mentally gone for 3-6 months.

A stay interview is the opposite. It's a short, structured conversation with a current employee — ideally your best ones — designed to surface what's keeping them, what might push them out, and what you'd never know unless you asked. Done well, one 30-minute conversation per year can do more for retention than an entire benefits overhaul.

Here's the script we use with our clients, the rules for running them without turning them into performance reviews, and what to actually do with what you hear.

One rule above all others: if you're not willing to act on what you hear, don't do stay interviews. There's nothing more corrosive than asking employees what's bothering them and then ignoring the answers.

What a stay interview is (and isn't)

A stay interview is a brief, structured, employee-focused conversation between a direct report and their manager. It's NOT:

• A performance review (no feedback flowing toward the employee)
• A goal-setting session (no "here's what I need from you next quarter")
• A 360 survey (not anonymous, not scaled 1-to-10)
• A retention pitch (you're not selling them on staying)

It IS:

• 30 minutes, 1-on-1, on the calendar
• Employee doing 80% of the talking
• Manager asking, listening, taking notes, and committing to follow-up
• An honest "what's working and what isn't" conversation

Who to interview, and how often

Ideal cadence: once a year per employee, staggered across the calendar so you don't burn out HR / managers doing them in one sprint. Priority order:

1. Your top performers first. These are the ones whose departure would hurt most, and the ones most likely to be recruited away.
2. Anyone who's "quiet" for a while. Suddenly going heads-down, less engaged in meetings, leaving earlier — schedule one sooner, not later.
3. Employees hitting a milestone: 1-year anniversary, 3-year, 5-year, promotion.
4. Anyone on your flight-risk radar. Manager's gut says "I think they're looking" — that's the one you ask first.

The 9-question script

Use this as a checklist, not a strict order. Follow the conversation where it goes. Don't hit all 9 if three of them uncover something real.

Opening the conversation

"I wanted to set aside some time that's just for you — not a review, not about projects. I want to understand what working here is like for you, what's going well, and what I could be doing differently. Nothing you tell me is going to be used against you. I'm taking notes so I can follow up on what I can actually fix."

Set that tone. Then start.

Q1: What do you look forward to when you come to work?

Opens positive. Surfaces what's motivating them — the thing you don't want to accidentally remove. Common answers we hear: "the team," "solving hard problems," "autonomy," "a specific client I love working with."

Q2: What are you learning here? What do you want to be learning?

Growth is a top-3 reason people stay or leave. If they can't articulate what they're learning, that's a red flag. If they can articulate what they want to learn that they're not, that's a gift — you just found a cheap retention lever.

Q3: What parts of your job do you enjoy most? Least?

Gives you actionable data for job design. Could you move the "least" stuff to someone else? Could you add more of the "most"? Small role tweaks cost nothing and boost retention dramatically.

Q4: When was the last time you thought about leaving? What triggered it?

The gold-standard question. Most people have thought about leaving in the last 90 days — even the ones you think are happy. The trigger is the important part: a frustrating meeting, feeling overlooked for a project, a competing offer, a life event, a specific conflict. These are fixable if you know about them.

Q5: What's one thing I could do differently as your manager?

Scariest question for the manager. Most critical answer for the employee. Even a "I can't really think of anything" tells you the relationship is solid. A pause + "well, honestly…" tells you the real issue. Receive it without defending.

Q6: Do you feel recognized for your contributions? By whom?

Not asking "do I recognize you enough?" — asking "do you feel seen?" Sometimes the recognition is there but it's landing wrong. Sometimes it's completely missing. Both are addressable.

Q7: What would make your job easier?

Cheap wins live here. "Faster approvals," "better tools," "more context before meetings," "a closer parking spot." Whatever it is, if it's reasonable, fix one thing from this list in the next 2 weeks. That one action does more for trust than a raise.

Q8: What would tempt you to leave — if a recruiter called you today with the perfect offer?

The honest answer here tells you the exit criteria. "A 20% raise." "Fully remote." "A bigger title." "The chance to manage a team." Whatever they say, you now know the threshold — and whether you can meet it before a competitor does.

Q9: Is there anything we haven't talked about that I should know?

The question that catches the real issue the other 8 didn't. Sometimes it's about a coworker. Sometimes it's about a life change. Sometimes it's "I'm training for a marathon and I need Friday afternoons." Whatever it is — you'd rather know.

Closing the conversation

"Thank you. I heard [summary: 2-3 specific things you captured]. Here's what I'm going to do about them: [specific follow-up]. I'll circle back with you in 30 days to let you know what's happening."

Rules for running one without making it weird

Do

• Schedule it in advance. "I'd like to spend 30 minutes next Wednesday getting your read on how things are going." Don't ambush.
• Pick a setting that matches the relationship. Coffee shop, walk, their office, video call — whatever feels natural for you two. Not the HR conference room.
• Take written notes. Shows you're serious. Keeps you from forgetting.
• Commit to one thing you'll fix within 2 weeks. Nothing builds trust like action.
• Follow up in 30 days. "Here's what I did with what you told me." That's the whole game.

Don't

• Don't combine it with a performance review. They'll clam up the moment they sense evaluation.
• Don't argue with answers. Even if you disagree, your job here is to understand, not defend.
• Don't promise things you can't deliver. "I'll look into a raise" only works once.
• Don't document in their HR file. These notes are for you to act on, not for future performance cases.
• Don't do it when they've just had a bad week. You want a read on their normal state, not their worst moment.

What to do with what you hear

After the meeting, spend 15 minutes categorizing what the employee shared into three buckets:

1. Fix this month. Small, immediate actions — better tools, a process tweak, a recognition moment, a workload adjustment, a schedule change.
2. Plan for this quarter. Bigger items — a salary review, a new responsibility, a training program, a team restructure. Share a rough timeline with them.
3. Strategic, longer-term. Career pathing, promotion opportunities, role evolution. Acknowledge it even if the answer is "not this year."

Send them a short follow-up email within 48 hours: "Thanks for the conversation. Here's what I heard, here's what I'm doing, here's what I'm not doing (and why)." Transparency about what you won't do is as important as what you will — it prevents the "you didn't even try" resignation six months later.

Patterns to watch across the team

After you've done 6-10 stay interviews across the team, look for patterns:

• Is the same manager showing up in multiple "what could I do differently" answers? That's a management-training issue.
• Are multiple people saying "unclear career path"? That's a career-laddering gap.
• Are people citing compensation in the "what would tempt you" question? Time for a market-rate review.
• Are multiple people mentioning the same process friction? Fix it once, help everyone.

The real power of stay interviews isn't individual — it's cumulative. One interview is a conversation. Ten interviews is a roadmap for everything you need to change to keep your best people next year.

The cost-benefit math

A 30-minute stay interview takes the manager's time (~45 min including prep and follow-up) + the employee's time (~30 min). Call it $150-$250 in loaded labor cost per conversation.

The cost of losing one $60k employee: $30,000-$120,000 (see our breakdown of turnover costs).

If stay interviews prevent one resignation per year, they pay for themselves 100x over. That's before counting the second-order benefits — teammates who stay because their coworker stays, referrals from people who love working for you, the compounding effect of a team that's been together long enough to actually be good at working together.

Start this month

Pick your three most valuable team members. Put a 30-minute meeting on their calendars in the next two weeks. Use the questions above. Take notes. Follow up within 30 days with something specific you changed because of what they told you.

If that sounds like too much commitment, start with one. One stay interview is infinitely better than zero.

Need help rolling out stay interviews across your company? IHG by ARG trains managers, drafts the question framework for your specific culture, and builds the follow-up system so insights actually turn into action. Works for teams from 5 to 200+. Book a free consultation or log into the client portal.