The Stay Interview: A Manager's Guide to Keeping the Best and Brightest Paperback - 2015

It's happened to all of us. One day a valued and seemingly happy employee gives you his notice, and before you can find out what went wrong, he's gone.

Was there anything you could have done? Any way of anticipating his departure? Any means of revealing his discontent? Yes. It's called the "stay interview," and the best organizations and managers are increasingly making it a key element of their engagement strategies. This book, written by the retention expert who pioneered the process, shows you how to use it with your own people.

The stay interview is a periodic meeting you conduct with your individual employees to shed light on any possible problems while there's still time for you to address them. A stay interview will only work, though, if it's done right. So this straightforward guide shows you how to:

Prepare for the meeting - Anticipate your employee's top issues - Set realistic expectations from the start - Establish trust - Respond to difficult questions - Listen effectively and dig deeper - Craft a detailed and effective stay plan complete with a timeline - Assess each employee's level of engagement, predict potential exits, and communicate your results to upper management

Is it really possible to improve your team's engagement, retention, and productivity by just asking employees what you can do to make their jobs better? Absolutely, and the results will speak for themselves. Complete with sample scripts for different situations and the five best questions to ask, The Stay Interview provides all the guidance you need to raise your engagement scores and minimize your turnover rate . . .before it's too late.

RICHARD P. FINNEGAN is the CEO of C-Suite Analytics, a consultancy specializing in engagement and retention including a software-based stay interview solution. An in-demand speaker, he has been cited by BusinessWeek and Chief Executive as a leading thinker on employee retention.