As The Great Resignation continues across the Life Science industry, now is the time for employers to reassess the working environments they offer and adapt these to the changing needs of workers post-pandemic.
One way to understand what is and isn’t working well within your organisation is to arrange stay interviews with your employees. These are conversations between an employee and their direct manager about what they like about their role, what issues they’re facing, and what they’d like to change.
Unlike an exit interview which helps you understand and learn from the mistakes you’ve already made, stay interviews give you the opportunity to stop smaller issues becoming long-term problems, ultimately helping to reduce your resignation rates.
In this article, we outline the key benefits of stay interviews, how to conduct them, and how to make them worthwhile for both Life Science employers and employees…
5 Key Benefits of Stay Interviews
Stay interviews help you understand how you can improve the employee experience before they find a new opportunity elsewhere. They give you the chance to identify any issues your employees are facing as well as time to create actions and improve overall employee satisfaction. The key benefits of stay interviews also include opportunities to:
When to Conduct a Stay Interview
If possible, make them an annual occurrence and keep them separate from performance reviews. However, if you’ve planned a stay interview for 3 months’ time but notice that your employees seem disengaged and unmotivated, be flexible and have the conversation sooner rather than later.
Preparing for the Interview
How often you conduct your interviews, as well as what each one consists of, shouldn’t be random. You need a strategy in place for your interviews to ensure you get the most out of them, and that the right actions can be taken where necessary.
If you want employees to be open and honest with you, you need to be prepared to explain what you’ll do with the information they give you. If you can show them an action plan that proves what they say will be taken seriously, you’ll get much more from them during the conversation, so have this prepared before you set up your meetings.
When preparing for the interview, you should also:
Here are 16 questions you could ask your employees:
Conducting the Interview
For stay interviews to be effective, there must be trust between employees and managers. If your organisation has strict hierarchies with lots of separation between junior and senior employees, you’ll find it hard to create an environment where employees feel they can be open about the parts of their job they don’t enjoy.
To build trust with your employees:
To encourage employees to be open, think about how you phrase your questions. For example, “How do you feel about working here” is less likely to encourage them to talk about their issues than a direct question such as “What do you dislike about your role?” It will be daunting for employees to be honest, so using these questions will let them know that you want to hear the negatives as well as the positives.
After the Interview
After the interview, thank employees for their time, summarise the feedback you’ve taken on board and show appreciation for their honesty. Continue to encourage open conversations with your employees outside of your meetings with them, and stay alert for any arising issues in your team.