JUST SAY NO TO TURNOVER
How Stay Interviews Can Improve Employee Retention
BY ERIC STEPHENSON
One of my favorite college memories was gazing out into the audience when my band played a classic song you know well . Punk rock legends The Clash perfectly scripted a battle cry that echoed throughout the 80s : “ Should I stay or should I go now ? If I go there will be trouble ; if I stay it will be double .” I felt immense joy as I would witness a sea of humanity erupting into a unified pogo stick , jumping up and down while screaming the lyrics . Looking back , I doubt they were singing about a massage therapist position at a spa , but those lyrics could describe the question rattling around in the minds of many spa employees these days .
When I mentioned “ stay interviews ” as one way spa industry businesses — or businesses in any industry , really — could improve their recruitment , engagement and retention efforts during a Knowledge Builder Session at
ISPA ’ s Stronger Together Summit in May , I was pleased that my comments drew some enthusiastic support from my fellow panelists and attendees . However , I was also a little surprised to find that the concept seemed so novel to so many . Stay interviews , after all , are not exactly a new phenomenon — employee engagement and turnover expert Richard Finnegan published his book The Stay Interview : A Manager ’ s Guide to Keeping the Best and Brightest in 2015 , and versions of the stay interview have been around longer than that .
“… like any tool , a stay interview is only useful when it ’ s wielded in the right way , so it ’ s crucial to lay the groundwork necessary to make the practice as effective as possible , which leads us to a concept critical to stay interviews ’ usefulness : psychological safety .”
34 PULSE ■ AUGUST 2021