Stay Interviews Can’t Save Everyone, But Who Can They Save?

A recent Forbes article
told the sorry story of a manager losing a top employee out of the blue. One of
those “everything seemed OK and then he quit” examples every manager has
endured. You can read it here:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2018/05/14/why-great-employees-quit-instead-of-admitting-theyre-unhappy/#34605be5446e

This story leaves me empty…in the sense that the employee
had so much to tell, maybe about specific duty wants and needs, colleagues good
to work with and not, a particular interest or career choice. The compelling
question is “Why did you look?” except asking it is too late. The horse, or in
this case the employee, has already left the barn.

Coincidentally, Forbes
published an interview with me recently, and the author made this key point:

For most managers talking to employees is a task without
a deadline. And for some, it’s a task without a deadline outside the manager’s
comfort zone! How good are any of us at tasks without deadlines outside our
comfort zones?

I have to wonder how effectively the manager in our story asked about the employee’s interests and needs and in doing so could that employee have been saved. Consider throughout your career if the following statement is true or just kind of funny:

There are two types of meetings at work:
Did you do your work? and Here’s more work.

I think
more true than funny. In fact, not funny at all. We tell managers to build
trustworthy relationships with employees but then we drill down on numbers,
relying maybe on engagement survey results or turnover statistics as our
“people metrics”. Throw in some generic training like situational leadership,
then tell them to just be themselves…and make those numbers.

Stay Interviews have rocketed to popularity because they work, slashing turnover and improving engagement. Combined with the Goals and Forecasting pieces of Finnegan’s Arrow, the manager would not have been blindsided and would have already known if they had a good chance at saving the employee. And I am certain, without any doubt, that if the manager in our story had conducted a Stay Interview with the employee who left, the story would have ended better.

Schedule a free one-on-one strategy
session with our team and we will listen to your concerns,
probe deeply to learn more about your workplace needs and work together to find
solutions to cut turnover and improve employee engagement. https://go.oncehub.com/TeamFinnegan