What this is
Eighteen stay interview questions. Each one names the factor it probes and the finding it rests on, with the source next to it. It is not a script. It is the list of things worth asking a person who has not resigned yet, ordered so that the conversation starts with what holds them and ends with what would move them.
What the evidence does and does not support
Our own review grades the evidence for stay interviews as insufficient. We looked for a controlled study showing that the interview itself reduces turnover and did not find one. What the research does support is narrower and more useful: a list of factors that predict leaving, and a documented reason to ask about them before someone leaves rather than after. In the exit-interview case study on this site, every departing employee managed the conversation to protect the relationship. Someone who is staying has less reason to.
So this set is built to reach the predictors while the answer can still change something. Read the grade before you run it, and treat any retention figure attached to a stay interview program as a customer's before-and-after, not a measurement.
How the set is built
The questions cover the nine drivers the retention diagnostic scores, and three signals from the research library: time in role, colleagues leaving, and whether a raised problem was fixed. Two openers carry no citation and say so.
How to run it
- Who asks. Not the manager, if the manager might be the reason. The most common single driver in the retention literature is the direct manager, so at least some of the time the direct manager is the wrong interviewer.
- One person, thirty minutes, no form. The claimed advantage of a stay interview is candor. A questionnaire routed through HR gives back the same managed answers an exit interview does.
- Write down the next step and who owns it. Asking what would keep someone and then changing nothing is worse than not asking. The reading guide behind the gate is the part of this pack that matters most.
A preview of the set
The first 2 questions of each section. 3 more, the reading guide, and the PDF are behind the gate below.
Start with what holds them
Two openers. Neither is a predictor; they set the conversation on what the person would lose, so the rest is not a complaint list.
What do you look forward to when you start work here?
If you were offered the same role somewhere else tomorrow, what would make it hard to say yes?
The manager
The heaviest factor in the diagnostic. If you are the manager, consider who else could ask these.
How often do you and your manager talk about how your work is going, and is that enough?
What is one thing your manager could do differently that would make your week better?
Career and time in role
The top stated reason for quitting, and the one signal that shows up in the data before anyone says it.
Where do you want to be in two years, and can you see a way to get there from here?
When did your role last change in a way that stretched you?
+ 1 more in the full set
Pay
Ask it plainly, then ask for specifics. The reading guide says how to weigh the answer.
Do you feel your pay is in line with what you could earn elsewhere for the same work?
Is there anything about how pay or benefits decisions are made here that feels unfair?
Workload and flexibility
Two factors that are usually visible before they are said.
In the last month, how often did you finish the day feeling you could not do it again tomorrow?
What could be taken off your plate without anyone noticing?
+ 1 more in the full set
Recognition and belonging
The two factors most often answered with a story rather than a complaint. Let the story run.
When was the last time someone here noticed something you did well, and how did they show it?
Is there a group of people here you feel you belong to?
Signals from the research
Three things the research library finds predictive that most question lists never ask.
Have people you work closely with left recently, and did it change how you feel about staying?
When something has gone wrong for you here, what happened after you raised it?
+ 1 more in the full set
Close
One question, and then the next step, written down.
What would have to change for you to still be here in a year?
Sources
- Gallup — Why Great Managers Are So Rare — Gallup
- Employee turnover prediction and retention policies design: a case study — Ribes, Touahri and Perthame (2017), preprint
- The Effectiveness of Exit Interviews in Reducing Employee Turnover — Robyn Johns, University of Technology Sydney, Proceedings of the 12th Annual IERA Conference, peer reviewed conference paper
- Why Lack of Career Development Makes Employees Quit — Work Institute, January 10, 2025, drawing on its Retention Report exit-interview data. A tally of the reasons leavers give, not a study of any intervention
- SHRM — Salary Gripes Are Top Reason Employees Quit — SHRM
- Gallup — Employee Burnout, Part 1: The 5 Main Causes — Gallup
- The Future of the Office Has Arrived: It's Hybrid — Gallup, October 2023. Gallup Panel survey of 18,871 U.S. workers, May 11 to 25, 2023; a survey of stated intentions, not measured turnover
- Gallup — Employee Recognition: Low Cost, High Impact — Gallup
- Gallup — How to Improve Employee Engagement in the Workplace — Gallup
- Network Contagion in Financial Labor Markets: Predicting Turnover in Hong Kong — AlKetbi et al. (2025), preprint
- Shared Hardships Strengthen Bonds: Negative Shocks, Embeddedness and Retention — Balthrop and Jung (2024), preprint
- How to make them stay? Diverse Counterfactual Explanations of Attrition — Artelt and Gregoriades (2023), conference paper