How often should you hold stay interviews?

Once or twice a year for each person is enough, with an extra one after a big change such as a reorganization or a new manager. For new hires, hold the first one at around six months, once the job has become routine.

Who should conduct a stay interview?

The direct manager, because most of what comes up is within the manager's reach: workload, recognition, growth and how the team runs. If trust between the two is low, a skip-level meeting with the manager's own manager is the better setting.

What is the difference between a stay interview and an exit interview?

A stay interview happens while the person still works for you and can still be kept. An exit interview happens after they have resigned. The questions overlap, and only the stay interview can change the outcome for that person.

What do you do if an employee says they are thinking of leaving?

Thank them for saying it, ask what prompted the thought, and do not answer with an offer on the spot. Agree one concrete change you can make soon and a date to talk again. Being told is the best position you can be in.

Retention conversations

Stay interview template

A stay interview form with an opening script, ten questions in four themes and a table for agreed actions, to fill in, copy or print.

TemplateWhat you type stays in your browser.

Employee

Manager

Date

Opening words to read out

I want to spend this time on you, not on projects. I would like to understand what keeps you here and what would make your work better. Nothing you say will be held against you, and I will tell you at the end what I plan to do about it.

What keeps you here

What do you look forward to when you start work?

What are you learning here?

Which part of your job would you miss most if it went away?

What might pull you away

What frustrates you or slows you down?

When did you last think about leaving, and what prompted it?

What would make a job somewhere else tempting?

Growth and recognition

What would you like to be doing a year from now?

Does your work get noticed? How do you like to be recognized?

What I can do

What is one thing I could change that would make your work better?

What should I keep doing?

Before you close

Last updated October 14, 2026

A stay interview asks why people stay while there is still time to act.

A stay interview is a structured conversation with a current employee about what keeps them here and what would make them consider leaving. It gathers the same information as an exit interview, at a point where you can still do something with it.

This form is for the manager. It opens with a short script, asks ten questions in four themes and ends with a table of actions, because a stay interview that changes nothing teaches people not to answer the next one.

Here is how to use the stay interview template in five steps.

How to use it

1Start with the people you most want to keep
2Keep it apart from reviews
3Ask, then stay quiet
4Agree one or two actions
5Report back within two weeks

Start with the people you most want to keep. Run stay interviews with every direct report over a quarter, and book your strongest people and anyone who has gone quiet first.
Keep it apart from reviews. Hold it as its own 30-minute meeting, not inside a performance review or a pay conversation, and send the questions ahead.
Ask, then stay quiet. Read the opening words, ask each question as written and let the silences run. Do not explain or defend.
Agree one or two actions. Before the meeting ends, write down what you will do, who owns it and by when. Small and done beats large and promised.
Report back within two weeks. Tell the person what happened to each action, including the ones you could not do, and why.

Here is a worked example with invented names.

Take an invented company, Wexcombe Outdoor, where Ines Carvalho manages a support team of eight. She holds a stay interview with Jonah Reyes, a senior support agent who joined two years ago.

Jonah says he would miss solving the hard product cases. What would make another job tempting is the weekend rota: he has worked three weekends in the last five. A year from now he would like to be working closer to the product team.

Worked example

Wexcombe Outdoor, an invented company: one stay interview

EmployeeJonah Reyes, senior support agent, 2 years
ManagerInes Carvalho
Would miss mostSolving the hard product cases
What would make another job temptingThe weekend rota: three weekends in the last five
A year from nowWorking closer to the product team

Agreed actions

Weekends capped at one in four from next month, and one day a week with the product team for a quarter

Ines agrees two actions before they close. Weekends are capped at one in four from next month, and Jonah spends one day a week with the product team for a quarter. Two weeks later she confirms both in writing.

These mistakes spoil a stay interview.

Running it only after someone has resigned. By then it is a counteroffer conversation.
Folding it into a performance review, where people give the safe answer.
Promising things you cannot deliver, such as a promotion you do not control.
Collecting answers and doing nothing. People answer honestly once, then stop.
Interviewing only the people you worry about, which tells everyone what the meeting means.

People ask these questions about stay interviews.

A stay interview is a one-to-one conversation between a manager and a current employee about what keeps the person in the job and what could make them leave. It is held while the person is still engaged, so that the manager can act on the answers.

These glossary terms explain the ideas behind it.

Stay interview
A stay interview is a structured conversation with a current employee about what keeps them here and what would make them consider leaving.
Flight risk
Flight risk is the likelihood that a specific employee leaves in the near future, based on observable signals rather than a manager's hunch.
Employee retention
Employee retention is a company's ability to keep the people it wants to keep, for as long as the business needs them.
Regretted attrition
Regretted attrition is a departure the company did not want: someone whose performance, skills or relationships you would have paid to keep.
Counteroffer
A counteroffer is a revised offer, usually pay or title, made to an employee who has already resigned in order to keep them.

These pages on this site go deeper.

These templates pair well with this one.

One-on-one meeting agenda template
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Career conversation template
Nine questions in five parts, from what gave energy to the next two or three steps.
Employee retention plan template
Four measures, three reasons, the roles you cannot lose and the actions with owners.

Find out who is showing exit signals.

Score one person against ten factors in five areas, in a few minutes, and see which signals are contributing most.

Run a flight risk assessment

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