Long-term Employees - 3 July 2007

If your spouse was considering breaking up with you, would you want to know the reasons and concerns in advance so that you could sort it out? Or would you be content finding out after the divorce was filed, in the hope that you would get it right the next time? I'm guessing it's the former. And herein lies the problem with exit interviews. They're too little too late. I'm not suggesting that exit interviews shouldn't occur. They must. But in addition to exit interviews, and as a higher priority, we need to be running stay interviews. Asking one or two questions during a performance appraisal is not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about a one-on-one interview with each of your talented and long-term employees every six months. The discussion should last at least half-an-hour, and this meeting needs to simply have one agenda item only, and that is: what can we do to keep you?

These interviews should be held with every employee who you feel is too precious to lose. And here's the key. Running stay interviews is useless (and actually counterproductive) unless we do something with the feedback we get. Employees will become cynical and disengaged if they feel their opinions aren't taken into account.

I once heard someone say, "Most engagements end happily. The rest end in marriage." The same thing happens in companies today. New employees are the most engaged; long-term employees are the least engaged. And yet, long-term employees receive the least amount of attention because we assume they're ok, when in reality, they require attention more than most. Often we don't realise this - until it's too late.

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