You’ve gotten through the monumental task of writing a job description, screening resumes, and conducting interviews to find your newest team member. Congratulations! This may seem like the time to take a break from interviewing, but on the contrary, it’s important to keep up a regular dialogue with all of your employees, which will serve to improve employee retention rates and ensure workplace satisfaction. As discussed by well-known organizational psychologist Adam Grant, there are two types of interviews that will help with this: entry interviews and stay interviews.
Entry Interviews
An entry interview is conducted with a new employee after they have completed the onboarding process. As discussed in one of our previous Focus on Talent articles, a clear and concise onboarding process can improve retention of new employees by over 80%. The interview, conducted as a survey and/or a one-on-one conversation with the employee’s direct supervisor, allows you to identify potential areas of improvement for your onboarding process.
In addition to onboarding feedback, this interview is a prime opportunity to discuss the employee’s role within the company, to make sure both you and your employee are on the same page regarding expectations of the role. It’s also a great time to consider and plan for any training or employee development needs for the position. Both of these components of the entry interview can increase the likelihood of your new employee staying with your company.
Stay Interviews
A stay interview is conducted with employees that have been with your company for an extended period of time, and is extremely beneficial in providing information about workplace satisfaction and why the employee has chosen to stay with the company. This interview also provides the chance for your employee to offer feedback on your performance as their supervisor, or feedback about the company as a whole.
This type of interview should be conducted more frequently during an employee’s first year, to continue to ensure that the role is clearly understood, and allow for any course correction to be made early. After one year of employment, a stay interview can be conducted annually, but it should not be incorporated as part of the employee’s annual performance review. Ideally, it should be offset by approximately 6 months from the performance review schedule, and be approached as a more informal conversation.
In summary, continual dialogue between your employees and their supervisors right from the beginning of an employee’s tenure can reduce turnover and increase employee job satisfaction. Entry interviews and stay interviews offer a way to ensure a consistent schedule for these valuable conversations.
