Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Stay Interviews

Stay Interviews
In today’s scenario, for any organisation, their employees are their live assets. Employees are the primary and most important resource for the success of any organisation. Organisations are growing fast, and the only reason for their success is its valuable employees. Each and every organisation wants to retain their most productive and valuable employees. But the problem lies in retaining these employees for a longer period of time. Organisations are facing a huge attrition problem. Employees are switching jobs in a short period of time. This results in monetary as well as productive losses to the organisation. Many organisations are constantly dealing with this problem.
To retain the best employees, first the organisation and management has recognise the needs i.e. monetary and non-monetary needs of the employees which gives him a complete job satisfaction ultimately resulting to retain the employees. Organisations and their management are now coming up with different employee a retention strategy which not only aims at retaining the employees but also motivating them by satisfaction of their needs. One of the modern day’s retention strategies that is becoming one of the most popular retention strategy is the “Stay Interviews”. As the saying goes” prevention is better than cure”, Stay Interviews provides that prevention of employees rather curing the losses after the employees leave the organisation.
A stay interview should aim at sensitivity listening, collecting feedback from employees, identifying the strengths as well as areas of improvements, developing trust and confidence with the employees and ensuring freedom of expression and problem sharing. The concept of stay interviews is in-fact has an empowering approach. Stay interviews focus on what is going right, rather than what went wrong. Stay Interviews can help in attracting and retaining the right talent.
The need of Stay Interview is felt when the corrective action taken after exit interview is not able to contribute much on identifying the real cause of attrition. In some of the cases when the decision was deferred by addressing the significant few reasons of quitting the job, the insignificant many tends to pile up to backfire. There is a need for constant engagement with employees. Stay interviews help making employees feel appreciated. Contrary to exit interviews, stay interviews are conducted to understand the reasons why the employees wish to continue working for the organization. Stay interviews should be conducted once in six months. However, this depends on the size of the organization. Stay interviews are more proactive, focus on the positive emotions of people who are enjoying their stay in the company and are able to point to things that the company is doing and should do more of because they are very happy about those things. The huge challenge of retaining talent can be solved to a large extent by adopting the concept of stay interviews and the concept of stay interviews is a positive and empowering approach. "Stay interviews focus on what is going right, rather than what went wrong. This is highly relevant in the Indian context where every industry is making a hue and cry about the challenge they face in searching right employees.
Stay Interviews can be conducted periodically by the immediate supervisor The HRD professionals of the organization are involved as key partners and facilitators in the process. Organizations and teams can conduct stay interviews periodically and also while undergoing critical phases of a change process. The information is used to work on further developing strengths and building strategies based on the strengths.
There is appreciation from employees for the recognition of their successes, skills and competencies. They feel empowered as contributors to the organization's strengths and successes and feel a part of the process of actively involving themselves.
This approach is very positive and empowering for teams too. Team members learn and grow together based on understanding the positive influences they have on each other and how they support each other in their respective growths and the growth of the organization. Stay interviews should be conducted once in six months. However, this depends on the size of the organization. For a small organization, it could be within three months and for a huge set-up it could be six months.
Besides, firms can use stay interviews for those in key positions, for targeted "at risk" individuals or do a random sample. Thus, if keeping your good people for a longer time is your goal, then start to take stay interview in an organization

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