Stay Interview Questions Template

Don't wait until someone seems unhappy. In late 2023, Gallup surveyed 717 US employees who had quit a job in the past year. Nearly half, 45%, said no manager or leader had proactively discussed their job satisfaction, performance or future with them in the three months before they left¹. Of those who did have that conversation, only 17% talked about what it would take for them to stay.

GitLab's public handbook asks managers to hold a stay interview, which it calls a leadership engagement check-in, with each direct report at least every six months². If you can't reach everyone that often, decide who goes first.

1. 1

   Set your capacity

   Count how many 30-minute conversations your managers can hold this quarter and still follow up on properly.

2. 2

   Gather three facts

   For each person: their start date, their team's latest engagement survey score, and any change of manager in the last six months.

3. 3

   Score and rank

   Weight the first year most, then add points for a low team score and for a new manager.

4. 4

   Draw the line, then adjust

   Cut the list at your capacity, then move up anyone you could least afford to lose.

Work Institute, which runs exit interviews for employers, found that about a third of all turnover in its 2016 interviews came in the first year³. The end of a new hire's 30-60-90 day onboarding plan is a natural time for their first stay interview.

Usually the person's own manager asks, because they can act on what they hear. Richard Finnegan wrote a SHRM book on stay interviews, and his firm trains managers to run them. He wants managers in the chair, with HR stepping in only in exceptional circumstances⁴. Start with the most senior leader, he suggests, so every other manager sits through one as the employee before running their own.

The exception is a manager who may be the reason someone would leave. In 2016, Work Institute asked current employees to rate their manager. Those who said fair or poor were 7.6 times more likely to look for a job within 12 months³ than those who said excellent. And of leavers who discussed leaving with someone first, Gallup found 44% didn't talk to their own manager before deciding¹.

So when two or more people under one manager sit above your cut line, have that manager's own manager or an HR partner hold those interviews. Present it as a routine change of interviewer, never as a finding about the manager, because nothing has been found yet.

Tell people ahead of time what the meeting is for: what keeps them, and what would make the job better. Finnegan's advice is to ask employees to allow 20 minutes but block 30 yourself, meet in person if you can and keep it separate from any performance review⁴.

Advice differs on sharing the questions in advance. Finnegan says don't, because people arrive with scripted answers⁴. GitLab asks people to review the questions beforehand and think them over². A middle path: share the topics, not the wording.

Before you go in, know what you can offer: how raises and promotions work, what training exists and how much flexibility your remote or hybrid work policy allows. Even then, promise nothing in the room. Say you'll find out and come back with an answer.

Pick five or six open questions across different topics. Reading a long list in order turns a conversation into an interrogation. Finnegan uses just five, worded the same way every time⁶.

Then listen. Finnegan's rule is to listen 80% of the time, probe with prompts like “Give me an example” and note key points and quotes⁶. If an answer is about you, thank them and write it down. Get defensive, he warns, and word spreads that you can't take feedback, so the remaining interviews turn short and fruitless.

Ask about staying as well as leaving, because the answers differ. In Work Institute's 2016 interviews, people planning to stay a long time most often named career development (27%) and what it calls job characteristics (26%). Work-life balance and management ranked second and third among reasons for leaving, but only fifth and sixth among reasons to stay³.

Write up what you heard that day, in their words, and send a short note within a few days. GitLab asks managers to share their notes with the person to make sure they heard the feedback correctly². Say what you will do and by when, and say plainly what can't change. An honest no keeps people talking; silence reads as being ignored.

Log each conversation's main theme and read across them: the same complaint from several people under one manager often points to the manager, not to separate problems. Hold the next round within six months to a year, and open it by reporting what changed.

Between rounds, regular one-on-one meetings keep these conversations from feeling sudden. When someone has already resigned, run an exit interview instead. To skip the spreadsheet work, choose Edit with AI at the top of this page. River ranks your list, reroutes interviews around a flagged manager and helps you log each conversation.