Companies need help to cultivate and sustain an engaged workforce. According to Gallup research, only 32% of the American workforce in 2022 was considered “engaged employees,” meaning those workers were committed to and enthusiastic about their current jobs. 

Even more discouraging, 18% of employees were actively disengaged. Plus, a sample of more than 15,000 U.S. employees found that at least 50% of the U.S. workforce consists of “quiet quitters,” categorizing workers as those who do the bare minimum required of them.

Poor or disconnected management is often to blame for employee dissatisfaction. But some tactics are easily implemented to address and improve this issue: 

• Improve manager engagement.
• Encourage managers to talk frequently with employees about their goals, strengths, and life situation. The ideal minimum requirement is at least one meaningful conversation of at least 15 minutes per week with each team member.
• Create accountability plans with team members to check progress and reinforce their meaningful organizational contributions.

In addition to these recommendations, managers can include stay interviews as a proactive strategy to improve manager-employee communication, improve job satisfaction, and combat quiet quitting. The following are some ways stay interviews benefit employers and employees.

1. Stay Interviews Build Trust

Stay interviews help create more trust between managers and team members and show employees that their employer cares about their satisfaction in their role and overall well-being. They help employers learn what employee value about their work and their ideas for organizational improvement. Stay interviews also allow employees to share their career aspirations within the company.

Trust matters because, as the Society for Human Resource Management points out, 23% of employees would offer more solutions and ideas if they trusted their leaders. One-third of workers would stay longer with an employer if leaders kept their promises.

When an employee sees that their employer listens to feedback provided during stay interviews and works on implementing solutions, that helps build a strong culture of trust and commitment to their workplace.

2. Stay Interviews Help Improve the Workplace

Speaking of feedback, you can use stay interviews to gain valuable insights from employees that help you improve your operations for current and future employees. Managers should ask employees for their opinions about improving processes and the organizations and encourage them to speak honestly and openly, without fear of repercussions for voicing their feedback. You might hear many employees’ opinions, but that wouldn’t be voiced otherwise.

Research from Sideways6 finds that 82% of employees have ideas about how companies can improve, but 34% don’t believe their company listens to their suggestions. Stay interviews can help you listen to employees and get valuable ideas for ways to improve.

3. Stay Interviews Reveal the Human Side of the Company

Today’s workers want to be seen as more than an employee. They want to be seen as real people with fears, needs, strengths and interests that can all impact who they are as workers.

According to a March 2023 report by Gartner, 82% of employees say it’s essential for their employer to view them as a person, not just an employee. But only 45% of employees believe their organization meets this need.

Stay interviews, in addition to frequent check-ins, help facilitate thoughtful conversations between managers and employees. Stay interviews allow employees to freely share their thoughts, which can help them feel like they’re viewed as a human, not just a worker. 

A human-centered workplace facilitates personal growth for employees, helps employees establish deeper connections at work and in their personal lives, and creates a shared purpose among your workforce. All of this can lead to improved retention and higher employee engagement rates.

4. Stay Interviews Help You Create Employee Forecasts

Data from stay interviews can power up your HR and hiring efforts. You may see trending topics that employees are voicing, which can be addressed in the current workplace and accommodated when hiring new workers. You can also gain insights that help you create more effective hiring practices, onboarding methods and training opportunities.

In stay interviews, you can also learn what excites employees about their jobs and you as an employer. You can highlight these details in recruitment materials, on social media and during preliminary interviews with candidates.