Will They Stay or Will They Go? How Stay Interviews Can Help You Keep the Good Ones

[00:00:00] Welcome to Wine with HR. I'm Jules. Hey there, I'm Trish. Lawyers turned HR professionals. Through our company, Monarch Endeavors, we guide employers through their oh shit moments with their employees. In this podcast, we will discuss some of the most common and commonly

[00:00:31] frustrating HR problems while enjoying our favorite adult beverage, wine. So sit back, grab a glass if you choose and join us as we think about and drink about all things HR. Will they stay or will they go now? If they go, there might be trouble. If they stay,

[00:00:57] hopefully it's not double. Welcome to this episode of Wine with HR. Today we will be state interviews. What they are, some of the benefits they can provide and some of the challenges

[00:01:11] that come with them. But before we get to that WHINE of the week, you know what time it is. So Trish, what are we drinking today since we're still in the studio together? Hello.

[00:01:25] Okay, so I've been dying to do this. Are you ready? I'm ready. Okay, well done. Perfection. Right? Except it didn't have the Well, that's because these are not carbonated. All right. So for those of you who are wondering

[00:01:46] what in the heck I am doing, we decided to change it up just a little bit. We're having something called a buzz ball. These are actually wine chillers. The one we're having is strawberry Rita and it is made with agave wine and all sorts of delicious natural flavors.

[00:02:15] I love these. You are supposed to shake them by the way, before you open them. So I think I might have forgotten that part. But they're woman owned. And yeah, so I've been a really big fan of these. My brother and I actually discovered these

[00:02:35] when we were up in northern Michigan visiting my parents. And the little place down the street from my parents, it's called Woody's. It's amazing. They have this little store there as well. And at the store, they had these things and we were like, excuse me.

[00:02:54] What are these little colored balls of goodness? For lack of a better way to say it. And so we got one of each of their flavors and they have strawberry and they have peach and they have

[00:03:07] apple which by the way, we're going to try the apple too. They have pina colada type of a flavor. So I mean, we're going to try the apple potentially. Oh no, we're here to serve.

[00:03:18] Oh yes. Yes. Okay. Fine. So they are delicious. I have already had the strawberry before. So Julie, I'm going to let you take the first sip. Okay. These are also loved by college

[00:03:34] kids across the United States. They do have a potent. Oh yes. That's alcohol by volume. So do not under any circumstances drink these at work or drink and drive. By the way,

[00:03:50] Julie and I did mention we are in the studio. We did Uber down here and we will Uber home because we are responsible. We are responsible. Oh, that's quite tasty. Isn't that delicious? Yeah. And this one, the strawberry is 15% alcohol by volume. So yeah, this is why we

[00:04:09] Ubered. Okay. So it is very strawberry. It does taste like a strawberry margarita, but it's got a little bit of lime, I feel like. Oh, yum. I love lime. And it is not frozen.

[00:04:27] So there's, it's a little bit easier to drink and it's not carbonated. You can put it over ice to make it nice and chill or put it in your refrigerator, et cetera. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[00:04:40] I see why people like these. Yeah. See. Slide it on over back to you. I'm hip like a college kid. Just kidding. I am so not. On this particular thing. Oh, right. Oh, very good. Very good. Okay. Sadly, I'm not going to disagree with you.

[00:04:59] I'm going to take my sip. Oh yeah, that's as lovely as I remember. And I am a big fan of margaritas. And so for me, the strawberry is fantastic. My other favorite is peach. Unfortunately, gray cannot try it. We meant we gave a shout out to gray

[00:05:20] before our wonderful producer on these couple of episodes, but I definitely gave her one so she could check it out. So trust me. I when she's safely at home, when she is safely at home.

[00:05:33] But in the meantime, we'll keep drinking these. Yes. Yes. Yes. And since we're giving a shout out to gray, we also have to give a shout out to Chris, our normal producer when

[00:05:43] we are not in the studio because he is all the fabs. Yeah. He's all the things. He's the reason you guys don't hear a lot of ums and ums and oh yeah. Thank you, Chris. Yes. And big shout out to Evergreen podcast for all they do for us.

[00:06:05] Hosting us and everything else they do. Yes. Okay. Now that we got all that out of the way and we have discussed our buzz balls slash agave wine, let's start talking about our WHIN-E of the week,

[00:06:20] which again are state interviews. And you know we always start this off with stat time. Oh see, we don't need a theme song. I by the way was listening to a couple of our

[00:06:33] episodes and clearly I am wanting a theme song for the stats because I keep mentioning it. Okay. You know maybe it was just that right there. Note to gray and Chris. Editor's note. Okay. Hit us with some stats Trish. Okay here we go. From this these stats

[00:06:54] are from a 2021 Gallup poll. Nearly half so approximately 48 percent of U.S. workers are watching or hunting for job opportunities. Yeah think about that. I mean what? Take a look at your team and just divide it by half. Yeah. Half of them are looking to leave.

[00:07:17] Yeah. That's scary. Yeah. Okay now 52 percent of voluntary voluntarily now all right. Exiting employees say their manager or their organization could have done something to prevent them from leaving the job. Oof. Oof is right.

[00:07:42] Now I want y'all to look at what your turnover is costing you and then think about being able to almost almost immediately half that number. Who's a rock star now? All right and then finally 70 percent of the variance in team engagement is actually

[00:08:10] determined by the manager and for those of you who have listened to our episode on new managers and what you can do. You guys have already heard similar stats that that let you know

[00:08:23] that when it comes to disengagement or engagement of your employees the manager has a huge huge responsibility in that. Yeah so managers you are the important peeps. Yes. You can be the heroes of these stories. So Jolly? Jolly. Jolly. Well that buzz ball is hitting Trisha already.

[00:08:55] Julie what exactly is a stay interview? Okay so I am going to use a definition from Richard Finnegan who wrote a book called The Power of Stay Interviews for Engagement and Retention.

[00:09:12] This book has been excerpted for SHRM so they have a bunch of articles on it which of course we will link in the show notes as we always do. But Richard Finnegan defines stay interview as a structured discussion a leader conducts with an

[00:09:29] individual employee to learn specific actions the leader can take to strengthen the employees engagement and retention with the organization. So in other words you as the manager are having conversations with your individual employees one-on-one about why they continue to show up for

[00:09:49] work every day and what might be leading them to think about going elsewhere. Now y'all that sounds maybe not very exciting it sounds a little boring but honestly I'm a huge huge fan of stay

[00:10:06] interviews. They're one of my favorite things. HR can conduct them as well not just the managers and they're really really really fun. They can be yeah and I think that this was an interesting point from Richard Finnegan's book because I hadn't really thought of this because I did

[00:10:23] always think about it being HR conducting these because oftentimes you want them to be able to speak freely and sometimes they won't do that in front of their manager but I thought he made

[00:10:33] a good point which is that you want the manager to be involved because you want the manager to hear it directly from the employee. That's huge. Right about what is keeping them there or what is

[00:10:45] making them think about leaving and sometimes that message can get diluted if it comes through HR as sort of like a third party or grapevine sort of situation. And then I think a lot

[00:10:58] of times when it comes that way too people could start to maybe have a negative tone to it or think that there was a complaint versus no this was meant to be positive and and proactive.

[00:11:12] Absolutely and the last thing that well I shouldn't say the last thing because we're going to talk a lot about Richard Finnegan's book but one of the other things he recommends which I thought was very vital is that anyone who is conducting a stay interview should experience

[00:11:30] one first. So the way he described it is it starts at the top so the people in the C suite level have stay interviews with each other or how whatever structure makes sense and then it

[00:11:42] filters down so that you as a manager before you ever conduct a stay interview with one of your employees have been the recipient of a stay interview where you have had to explain to

[00:11:54] your supervisor why you continue to stay with the company. I absolutely love that yeah I mean one of the things in my investigations courses that I again you know that Julie and I always

[00:12:07] talk about role playing because it does become muscle memory but one of the things that I tell people is if you haven't sat in the hot seat before, if you haven't experienced someone asking questions role play because even though you know it's your role playing there's something

[00:12:26] about when people are asking you questions and they're drilling you you start to feel like oh my goodness why are you asking that or talking like that and then it allows you to have a

[00:12:36] better perspective when you're the one asking the questions. So again a whole different topic that we could get to but I do love having people experience it before they actually engage in the process of conducting them themselves. Indeed so let's talk a little

[00:12:56] bit more about what a stay interview actually looks like. So Trish what's one thing you can tell us about what a stay interview should look like? One-on-one and why. Do we really have to

[00:13:11] go to the why? Oh man okay everybody knows I love the why. The why I always tell tell everybody that you need to explain the why but listen small groups you're getting the perspective of other individuals of other employees and they're gonna people will just go

[00:13:33] yeah yeah yeah what they said or they'll copy or they won't say a word or worse yet maybe they'll be fearful to say what they truly think. So what we would want is to focus on an

[00:13:50] individual person so that you really get to the truth about why they are staying or maybe even what is the one thing I'm gonna give you guys a one of my favorites right now.

[00:14:03] What's the one thing one of our competitors could do to steal you away? I know right? That is one of my favorites. Yeah and you want to make sure that you're explaining the purpose

[00:14:17] of the stay interview and that is for leadership or you as a manager to learn what you can do to help the employee stay with the company longer and feel fully engaged with their work.

[00:14:31] So this has nothing to do jumping ahead a little bit but Trish if you want to say more about it you can feel free okay but this has nothing to do with this particular employee's

[00:14:43] individual performance. This is what keeps them showing up every day to this job and if all they have to say is I need the money then you've got some work to do. I don't even know what to say

[00:15:02] because seriously if someone says that oh boy right yeah hopefully that's not all you have to offer. Julie I really truly do not know if someone said that I would cry I mean I would I would have to go back to the drawing board.

[00:15:25] Can I just skip that one? Yeah you know I mean you don't have to say anything now okay you may come back to it. I'm gonna come back to it because that one is

[00:15:35] that really hit me. I'm gonna answer something else and let myself think about that for a little bit. Well and the only thing I would say is we have all had those jobs where it's just the job

[00:15:46] that gets us through. Well yes. And there are those jobs but as we will talk about more in this episode that's not necessarily who you who you are having a stay interview with.

[00:15:57] Oh that's a very good point. So we will get to that later but Trish why don't you talk about something else that should be an element of a stay interview. How about doing it and giving

[00:16:10] enough time? Oh yeah so Julie and I are always saying help your employees feel respected or valued etc. How valued would your employee feel if you're conducting an interview a stay interview and you're having this conversation with them and all of a sudden you go

[00:16:32] okay well thanks our time's up and you just interrupt them. So I understand that we are all very very busy but I can guarantee you that conducting these it doesn't just help you understand where you're falling short. It also allows you to focus on where that employee

[00:16:53] wants to go in the future. It allows you to create development plans. It allows you to create engagement. So there's so many benefits to these. So even though you think you don't have the time let me promise you you do because otherwise that person's going to leave and

[00:17:15] you're going to have to hire and maybe rehire and rehire. So you don't want to get sucked into that particular downward spiral. So save enough time. Yes and to your point always just add extra

[00:17:31] time because you know how it is if you book I think we get really tied to time frames you know like teams automatically sets every meeting up for an hour so then we think it has to go

[00:17:43] an hour. Well it doesn't but if you set it up for an hour and it only takes 30 minutes somebody's going to be thrilled they have 30 minutes of their time back. You set it up for

[00:17:52] 30 minutes and somebody talks to you for an hour now they're stressed out. So allow for extra time and if you don't need it that's great but you want to give people the time to number one

[00:18:04] there's going to be a couple moments of awkwardness where they're like am I can I really say what I think here or do you really want to know? Right exactly so you got to get

[00:18:13] through all of that sort of like initial yeah I don't trust this yet you know so you got to get through that then they might start to open up and to Trisha's point you don't want

[00:18:24] to be like oh I am so sorry this is a great conversation but I got a meeting I got to get to. So the worst. Schedule err on the side of scheduling more time if you get done early

[00:18:35] that's great. Yeah there's nothing more disrespectful than having a meeting with an employee and first of all not listening to what they have to say but then second of all saying

[00:18:46] oh sorry someone else is ready to talk to me gotta go bye yeah like what especially if you started off going so I really want to hear what you have to say uh-huh but I have to go

[00:18:59] that does not work just saying oh my goodness oh my goodness okay so another thing about the stay interviews is that they should be done at regular intervals so you're not going to do them every quarter you're not going to

[00:19:15] do them like one right after the other but you do want to do them at sort of regular in an interval so that could be depending on your industry your company your culture whatever

[00:19:28] fits but you might do them after somebody has completed a year of employment maybe after three years maybe after five years or you might break people up so you don't have to do them all at

[00:19:41] once so if you've got a team of 20 people maybe you do five and quarter one five and quarter two five and quarter three you know because we we understand these things take time it's time

[00:19:54] well spent but you also need to be judicious about how you allocate that time so you can split it up however you want but just make sure that you are making the time at regular

[00:20:09] intervals and getting that sort of feedback okay that was amazing but now I have to drop a truth bomb on everyone are you ready I don't know I managed to say the word judicious without was really impressed yes yes 15 percent

[00:20:27] I want you all to listen to me very very closely this is separate from performance this is not part of your evaluation process what we are talking about here is you having an actual conversation remember those conversations we talk about all the time yeah that's and

[00:20:56] again by the way your employees aren't going to do this if you haven't created that safe space so first you need to create that safe space and then second you need to start having these

[00:21:07] because what we're asking you to do is ask them what's going to keep them what could cause them to leave this is about wanting to retain those employees that are bringing something to your company that maybe no one else could offer or maybe someone could but why would

[00:21:30] you not want to keep the wonderful person you have in front of you and and so understanding their perspective and the things that could cause them to leave now maybe it's the work

[00:21:40] life balance maybe for them it is pay maybe it's that they don't feel respected if you know those things you don't know how to fix them truth bomb yeah we have a lot of those

[00:21:54] in this episode i have a funny feeling also as a manager you have to be prepared to have some truth bombs dropped on you because they may say oh it's the way that you manage it's the

[00:22:11] team dynamics it's things that are within your control and you have to be able to hear that without getting defensive or defending yourself because this isn't the place to do that no even if you think that the employee is completely out of bounds about what they are

[00:22:29] saying this is not the place so in these stay interviews your job is to listen listen listen three times it's always three times yes so no matter how hard it is to hear what your

[00:22:48] employees are saying your job is to listen and to hear which i think is the bigger point yes because oftentimes we listen but we don't hear agreed so you want to hear what they are saying

[00:23:04] and you may need time to process it and some of it you may find to be not completely valid and other things you may upon reflection be like yeah i could probably do

[00:23:15] a better job about that yeah you know uh so but as a manager that is part of this process and so through these state interviews you may hear things you do not want to hear

[00:23:27] but that's okay um i'm gonna do a shameless plug with the new courses that julie and i have well they're not new we've had them for a long time we're just updating them and releasing

[00:23:40] online versions one of the courses that we have is emotional intelligence and part of that emotional intelligence course is actually being able to hear these things and not react from that emotional or negative perspective um being able to pull yourself back think about and sit in

[00:24:05] that conversation and then respond from a calm and professional manner because if you react you've asked them what is your true feelings if you react and you start defending or you start switching blame or something like that well now you have no longer created a safe place

[00:24:27] you have done exactly the opposite of what you intended to do and so i would highly highly recommend for those of you who are like nope i can't do this um just sit with that course

[00:24:40] try that course out and and um or even if you are not ready to take the course do a little investigating on what emotional intelligence is and how it could benefit you when people are

[00:24:53] saying things that maybe aren't going to feel very good for sure and i think it's important to note that that is human nature oh yeah for all of us no one none of us like to hear

[00:25:06] criticism nope uh and i certainly have been in that boat and i have learned to do exactly what you're talking about if somebody says you know what the other day you said this and i just

[00:25:19] wasn't quite sure how to take it or it made me feel this way or whatever the case may be i have taught myself to be able to sit and say okay okay well that certainly wasn't my

[00:25:32] intention i can see why you thought that yep maybe i didn't show up as my best self you know or just saying i hear you i need a little bit time a little bit of time to think

[00:25:46] about that but i do want to circle back and i appreciate that you had the courage to tell me bingo something that was probably really hard for you to tell me and for those of you who

[00:26:00] work with friends we do have an episode on that because you know juli and i have been friends for well longer than we haven't yeah we're just gonna say it that way and we have had to have some of these difficult conversations not just as friends but also

[00:26:20] you know this is this is a professional environment when we work together we need to be able to trust each other and share things and know that the other one isn't going to get

[00:26:32] offended and maybe even take advantage of the friendship and and so in all areas of my professional life and and in my personal life being aware of my emotions has most certainly benefited me do you love news about linkedin indeed google and just about every other

[00:26:54] recruitment tech company out there hell yeah i'm chad i'm cheese we're the chad and cheese podcast all the latest recruiting news and insights are on our show dripping in snark and attitude subscribe today wherever you listen to your podcasts we out

[00:27:15] so let's talk a little bit about some of the benefits of stay interviews so this is from that gallup article that trisha referenced earlier and again we will put the link in the show notes but one of the benefits is that stay interviews can boost positivity and trust

[00:27:34] so if they are done right again you do not want to just slap these things together or walk into a room and be like so why do you stay here why you keep coming back every day

[00:27:45] you know you want to be prepared you want to have your questions you want to do the same questions for each person you're doing a stay interview with but when they are done right

[00:27:55] they help employees feel appreciated and valued two of our favorite words yes as human beings not just employees and then you are showing that again if you can sit there and receive criticism about your practices or how you manage or about the company or anything that

[00:28:18] you might be sensitive about if you can sit and hear that from employees and not react in a negative way that will help build trust with your employees so they can actually come to you

[00:28:30] when they have a problem and that is really really vital huge yeah yeah and and by the way the problem may not be with you maybe with the company right so but even if it is with

[00:28:41] the company you don't want to defend the company either and and you don't want to agree that the company sucks fyi right right there's a happy medium yes yes so i think i one of my

[00:28:56] favorite things about the benefits is that it really does allow managers and employees to take control of their own role when it comes to improving their experience um i think this is is vital a lot of times people will sit back and think there's nothing

[00:29:22] i can do this is out of my control um and they don't realize that it absolutely is within their control first of all they could leave and and that is what we're trying to prevent right

[00:29:34] um but getting that message out there that both parties or all parties are in fact responsible for the employee experience or the employment experience i think that that places ownership in both on both sides of the court so to speak and so it's okay let's pass you were

[00:30:00] talking in one of our other episodes about passing the ball right so i'm i'm thinking more of a tennis court thinking okay i'm gonna hit it this is what i'm thinking and then the employee

[00:30:11] comes back with this is what i'm thinking and then vice versa um so you keep going along that path and then all of a sudden you figured it out yeah and you know everybody likes to have

[00:30:24] some sense of control right so if you can give that to people that's a gift exactly exactly one of the last benefits that we'll talk about which may not seem like a benefit

[00:30:38] off the bat but state interviews can expose triggers so they can help you as the manager or the hr professional identify unforeseen challenges and barriers that could lead to a more satisfying employee experience so if you do develop that trust that we were talking about

[00:31:01] and you can actually get your employees to open up about what might be leading them to leave and you can identify those things then you may have the power to change them now not everything's

[00:31:13] going to be within your control but sometimes even if you can just acknowledge yeah i hear you you're right that's a problem i don't know how quickly we can fix it but i am committing

[00:31:25] to you that i'm going to try to do what i can that can be really powerful and could get somebody to stick around a lot longer so exposing those triggers is really important because again a lot of times what we're talking about with these state interviews

[00:31:42] is those employees you really really like if they came in and said i'm turning in my resignation you would be like crushed oh yeah i was gonna say something else a little bleep out you

[00:31:56] know yeah okay so those employees those are the ones we're talking about that you're having these conversations with where you're like oh my god if you told me you were leaving i would

[00:32:12] be devastated and it would be a big loss so are you talking about me yeah of course i'm talking about you yeah she goes yeah but those are the ones that you want to know what those triggers are

[00:32:28] so and again for the most part it is never money money is the last thing so most people will stay even if they're they could get a job paying more if they like where they are they

[00:32:41] like their manager they feel like they're being valued and appreciated they feel like they're getting development opportunities all of those things they will stay for less money but if all of those other things aren't adding up and then they get offered a job for more

[00:32:58] money they're like peace out yeah and julie i want to just piggyback off of what you said so incredibly important but there's something that's even more important you have to actually create action oh to remove those barriers if someone tells you that these barriers exist

[00:33:23] and then you go oh yeah that really sucks or that's really terrible and then you don't do anything about it how valued is that person gonna feel not at all exactly yeah so create

[00:33:40] some action plans and look y'all we understand they you may not be able to do anything you may not be able to do anything at the moment but acknowledge what they said tell them that you're

[00:33:53] going to work towards a solution um and maybe even if it's possible why you can't offer solution immediately yes yes okay so you may still be wondering so how do i conduct a stay interview

[00:34:10] so let's talk about some of the questions that you could actually ask your employees so trisha what's one of your favorite questions to ask well i think i told you guys one of my

[00:34:22] favorites which is um if one of our competitors could get you to leave what is the one thing that they could do to steal you away from us the reason that is my favorite is it kind of

[00:34:36] it gives them an out it gives them an out because they don't feel like oh now i'm not saying anything bad about the company this is a safer way to say it and so they could say well they could offer

[00:34:51] me x or y or z and then you can kind of delve further into it so that is by far one of my favorite favorite questions yeah i think that's a great one um and as you're asking these questions

[00:35:07] they should be open-ended because again you are supposed to be listening 80 percent of the time so you want to ask those open-ended questions but another one could be something along the

[00:35:19] lines of what are you learning here and what do you want to learn or maybe a different way to say it is what other jobs here interest you because that could be a way to find out what other

[00:35:31] roles this person is interested in what their aspirations are you know and just if they see any opportunity for growth within the organization which is an important thing for keeping people for retaining people absolutely one of my favorite questions on the very first day when

[00:35:49] someone joins a company where do you see yourself with us in a year four or five years they usually look at me and i tell my classes this all the time like i have like three or

[00:35:59] six or ten heads um but then once they've been here and hopefully you guys are doing like some sort of a 30 60 90 onboarding or even up to 180 um and then at that point i will ask them

[00:36:12] again and because i've planted that seed usually they can come up with an answer so now imagine if you add the stay interview from the manager on top of that they go holy smokes they actually really meant this they want me to grow with the organization

[00:36:33] yep yep i also like and this is a little bit of a harder question a little bit more delicate but when is the last time you thought about leaving us and what prompted it so again it

[00:36:46] could be a truth bomb that you get a response to that but it's an important question because we all have those moments like we've all been contacted by a recruiter or you know seeing a

[00:37:00] job posting for something and thought you know because in our heads everything is perfect of course always greener on the other side as green as that green apple buzz ball which we're going to get into shortly relax old old but i think it's an important question

[00:37:24] because that will tell you something which is if there really is a challenge or an obstacle or something that's going on that is having people try to run for the doors you need to

[00:37:35] know about it i love that one so much you know getting them to think about what julie and i have talked a lot about gratitude and getting people to shift their focus towards gratitude so asking

[00:37:52] them questions that will do that is also a wonderful way to approach it so what do you look forward to each day when you commute to work this one also comes from that article julie

[00:38:06] mentioned and i have actually never asked this question but now i think i'm going to include it because i think it's fantastic because it really really does focus on that gratitude issue that

[00:38:20] we've talked about before other ways to say it give me an example of something that you look forward to each day or tell me more about your favorite daily activity here at work

[00:38:37] what do you look forward to the most and i just i i think that that really helps again you can turn the tide if someone is starting to maybe they have kind of started to focus on that

[00:38:53] negative by asking that question you can really focus more on the positives and the gratitude so that one is going in my toolbox that was one of my favorites from this article

[00:39:05] absolutely and i think you know two things on that one is it is human nature to focus on the negative they say that it takes 20 positive comments too or maybe it's 10 whatever i'm not

[00:39:19] a math person i'm a lawyer it doesn't matter anyway it takes a lot of positive comment commonance commonance it takes a lot of positive comments to outdo a negative one negative comment yes because that is where our brains go so we do have to help people

[00:39:42] focus on the positive it is very easy in a workplace we've all been there where everybody is a negative nelly or a debbie downer or why are they all women's names we're gonna have to

[00:39:56] change that um yeah right yeah i don't like that a david downey i was gonna say a dan downer oh okay yeah so anyway but it can shout out to our friend dan deborah's husband you've all met

[00:40:13] deborah it can be very easy to focus on the negative so if we can help them figure out what the positive things are that they are you know why they keep showing up to work because

[00:40:24] hopefully some of those are other than because i need the money as we said so the worst one right right so we want to think about that one of my other favorite questions because this does

[00:40:38] help build that trust relationship is for the manager to say how can i best or better support you that is actually one of my favorite questions i have to give a shout out i know i'm totally

[00:40:51] interrupting you but i have to give a shout out to one of my former attendees and his favorite saying and we'll ask this whenever he has the opportunity how can i best support you

[00:41:04] today or how can i help you succeed today i love it right yeah yeah i totally stole it from him i use it all the time now well thanks to random person in trisha's class yeah i don't want to

[00:41:18] call him out specifically he knows who he is he knows he listens you're a rock star he is he's totally a rock star okay so any other questions that you really like

[00:41:30] for a stay interview let me think here um i know i have a bunch of them that i usually ask oh you could even kind of going off of what you just said what can i do to make your job

[00:41:48] better for you or easier or easier yeah yeah and i know we said we were focusing on the positive but i also think it can be helpful to ask what really frustrates you why do you stay well why

[00:42:01] do you stay but also like what really frustrates you so like oftentimes those are fixable things because they tend to be either logistical things bureaucratic things you know like things that hopefully we can eliminate yeah but just asking that question and giving people

[00:42:23] the freedom to say oh my god you know what frustrates me is that every time i go to log into this program it takes me five tries or you know like um we all have things saved

[00:42:35] in a different drive or i can never find the form that i need or you know like those sorts of things that really do suck up a lot of your time on a day-to-day basis and if we can eliminate

[00:42:47] those things this department number answers my emails until i include the manager right right right which that is a topic we should include for another podcast which is interdepartmental cooperation check we will like a harry potter thing oh my goodness all right

[00:43:09] there we're not going down the harry potter road she and i will both get uh yeah no okay um i want to give you guys just a couple more of my favorites these do not come um or did not

[00:43:21] come from the article so some of my favorites that i have um do you feel respected by me as your manager i know right that could be a truth bomb it could be or do you feel respected

[00:43:38] by your peers oh right that one as you mentioned really really can be dangerous but i think it's very important or do you feel valued by those are i think some of like you said there they

[00:43:53] could lead to some negative answers but those are a couple of my absolute favorites because i think you really get down to the nitty gritty we want people to feel that they have

[00:44:05] been heard we want people to feel that they're valued and if they don't feel valued or respected or heard by their peers by their manager by their supervisor uh or direct skip level managers

[00:44:24] there there could be a really big issue there and and so i think just asking that simple question or asking those in multiple different ways now if you guys will notice i said one

[00:44:36] thing and then i expanded on it in three separate ways that were all very similar sometimes people aren't necessarily comfortable answering a question if you ask it and change it just subtly or just a little bit all of a sudden they go oh wait a minute that actually

[00:44:55] resonates with me and and they'll respond so i like to ask those and i like to ask them in multiple different ways like i said yeah or if you get nervous in situations like this or

[00:45:07] conversations like this and you don't know what to say a great fallback is tell me more tell me more about that can you talk a little bit more about that yeah like i'm i'm really

[00:45:19] interested to hear what you have to say tell me more i love that that's a great one it's easy it can be your fallback for everything but it just it's it opens the conversation to them telling you whatever it is that they

[00:45:37] feel they need to tell you i'm going to piggyback off of that again one of my favorite favorite things is addressing something to move forward i cannot stand when people come at me with complaints i'm sorry i know that that may sound mean but i don't like complaints

[00:45:59] i want you to come at me with solutions now in this case we are asking them for those complaints right but what happens if we say to them once they have given them the opportunity to share their feelings if we say so how would you fix it

[00:46:17] well so truth bomb ready ready every negative comment is the potential for a positive path forward wow that really is a truth bomb see we need a note to gray and chris drop bomb sound

[00:46:41] here just in case julie's didn't get the point across which i actually think it did so never mind forget it well and here's the thing so i i agree with you 100 i love it and i was told

[00:46:55] that very early on in my legal career if you're going to come at me with a problem come at me with a solution as well and i do i do fully appreciate it when people do that i sense a

[00:47:06] but coming there is a but and i think that that is that a lot of people haven't learned that yet right so we have to also teach them that so this is a coaching moment as well

[00:47:21] but it's really on us anyway because if there are employees and it's not their job to figure out the solution oh good point then that's on us as the manager or leadership or whatever

[00:47:34] the case may be so but that is an opportunity to teach them okay i hear what you're saying i loved your question if you could fix it how would you fix it because then think about if

[00:47:48] you actually take even part of what they tell you that's what i'm saying exactly right but you give them some ownership which we talked about earlier some control over the situation

[00:48:01] but you also are showing them hey this works a lot better if you come to me with a solution in mind versus just griping agreed agreed okay all right so let's talk about some more tips and

[00:48:20] tricks so you had talked about you got to be prepared to take action because you can't just ask people for feedback and then not do anything with it yeah we have talked about that probably

[00:48:32] ad nauseam but that's all good because it's true ad nauseam it's true so one of my other tips would be when an employee tells you that they are thinking of leaving don't doubt them

[00:48:50] so if they are you think they're fibbing no if they are courageous enough to come to you and say you know what i'm at my wits end i can't i can't i just can't anymore believe them

[00:49:05] yeah because they're probably at their wits end at that point and do not just write it off as them having a bad day make time sit down with them and say tell me what is going on

[00:49:19] tell me how we can fix it let's figure it out because you are valuable i want you here i need you here oh i need you here i feel like jerry mcguire you complete me

[00:49:39] you cannot leave another throwback reference sorry i know we are old but that's okay we are we are okay um but julie you actually got me thinking what if someone doesn't tell you

[00:49:52] i'm fed up i'm ready to be out there may be signs or cues other than just i'm going to leave so i want to throw out there to everybody like look if there's been a change in attitude recently

[00:50:09] or maybe they're taking some time off that was unexpected they just don't feel as engaged with you or the team or your general processes don't be afraid to ask them if they are okay or if

[00:50:29] they need anything from you i will throw out a caveat a warning a you know let's put in a siren here if they start talking about fmla issues or if they start talking about health issues

[00:50:45] if they start talking about anything like that do not pass go do not collect 200 dollars because we're going old school today right um go straight to hr stop them immediately tell them i appreciate that you trust me so much that you're willing to share with me

[00:51:07] this information however for your safety and mine this conversation needs to be handled with hr yes amen oh whoa that's like dropping a mic yeah okay so another thing i'm going to say is that if an employee

[00:51:28] mentions perhaps issues with co-workers issues with team dynamics or other things like that you may want to get hr involved or you may want to talk to other people to see if that is

[00:51:43] a general consensus or if that might be unique to this one person and the reason i say that is because there i had a situation recently where we you know thought that this one particular

[00:52:00] manager was rocking it and everything was going well now this manager had expressed some issues and had even asked to be demoted which is a huge red flag right like something's going on

[00:52:17] yeah and so we did start having conversations with this person and then she did end up quitting but once that person was gone we had conversations with the other people and realized it was a much more complex situation than we anticipated and so i normally would not

[00:52:41] say this because you should be able to trust your management level employees that they have a good grasp of the situation but if somebody is really saying that it is based on the team

[00:52:55] dynamics or that there's issues going on within the department it probably would be helpful to get some other perspectives so that you can better evaluate whether it is a singular view

[00:53:12] whether it is a global problem you know or what exactly is going on because we learned a whole lot once we started talking to more people that gave us a very different perspective and so i'm not saying doubt your employees but i'm saying trust but verify

[00:53:32] yes yes well and and i think that you know i mentioned earlier investigations i think that that's a really good point where like some of these questions can be used in investigations too if there's something again this is now specifically uh focused more on hr but if you

[00:53:53] as an hr employee realize that there's something more going on and nobody's willing to talk nobody's come forward with a complaint or even better yet they've come forward with a complaint but it's completely anonymous and they say my department my manager and you have like you know

[00:54:13] 100 managers and how many departments probably at least 100 um and so you're trying to figure out what it is stay interviews are very helpful from that perspective as well um because we may be on the hook if someone's giving us notice right absolutely absolutely the only other thing that

[00:54:35] i have to say is i mentioned it before but you want to do these state interviews at sort of regular intervals but you can think about what makes the most sense for you so obviously

[00:54:46] you don't want to do these all the time because then people will be like why do you keep asking me why i'm still here are you being reason are you being passive aggressive

[00:54:57] are you really telling me to leave right we don't want that but there could be and again it may may be dependent on the culture at your particular organization the flow of your

[00:55:11] industry whatever it is but maybe you want to do them at the end of year one at the end of year three at the end of year five and then again at 10 you know like you don't at a

[00:55:22] certain point you don't have to keep asking people but you want to do them often enough that you're catching problems before they become obstacles that you can't overcome oh i like

[00:55:37] that that's a great way to say it yeah so and i would say as trisha was talking about earlier anytime you see a distinct change in a particular employee's behavior demeanor performance output

[00:55:55] whatever it might be that's a great time to have a stay interview because oftentimes that's the first sign is they become disengaged all of a sudden they're just not themselves you know

[00:56:07] it's like these very subtle signs and i think we have been conditioned not to ask people about that to give people their space which i agree in most circumstances but i don't think anybody

[00:56:22] is typically offended if you just ask them hey are you okay yeah you know like or is everything okay is there something i can do all right like i just sort of noticed you don't seem yourself

[00:56:38] right is there something i can do can i better support you that you know that question like there are easy ways to open up the conversation which is the whole point of a

[00:56:52] stay interview is to open up the conversation and the other thing that i will say this was a great point from one of the articles which again we'll have them in the show notes is when you're having these stay interviews or these kind of more intimate conversations with

[00:57:07] employees you don't have to do it in your office invite them out for coffee right yes or say hey would you like to take a walk at lunch like let's take a walk like sometimes if you're side

[00:57:22] by side or corner to corner but not like across from each other you're not in your hr office or your manager office where you're the boss and they're the underling you know it can really open up the conversation where you're more equals and you're walking side

[00:57:39] by side and having that conversation or you're sitting over coffee and having that conversation but let them know ahead of time that that is the plan so that they don't get like all of

[00:57:49] a sudden oh my gosh they're getting fired today they invited me on this walk because right give them a heads up like hey i want to have this conversation and i think it would be

[00:58:01] fun to have it over coffee or while we walk so that we can really just relax and be ourselves and i think that there was something else that you mentioned that i think was really

[00:58:11] really important and that is you don't have to have these with everyone now we want it to be inclusive inclusive but it doesn't really need to happen with everyone um but if you are

[00:58:28] having them can i say it one more time jules really be listening turn off your cell phone close your computer do not answer the phone actually listen to what those employees are saying otherwise that employee that may have been just fine all of a sudden says you know

[00:58:49] what that stunk they weren't caring or they didn't listen and now they're thinking they want to go too yeah absolutely all right so let's get back to our buzz balls okay so y'all don't

[00:59:05] know this but in the middle uh we switched from the strawberry to the green apple and i'm thinking julie the green apple is not your cup of tea it's a lot it really is like sucking

[00:59:20] on a jolly rancher with a a i don't know some sort of aftertaste no offense to the buzz ball lady woman owned love ya uh but yeah it's it's it's vivid it's vivid yes it has quite a vivid

[00:59:40] taste it looks like a jolly rancher yes bow show tastes like a jolly rancher it does taste like a jolly rancher but it's got an extra punch yeah yeah yeah like i said um the

[00:59:53] the strawberry and the peach are my absolute favorites um they they have several several great flavors i would say the the green apple is not my favorite um i don't have uh it's

[01:00:07] a little sweet i think is is what it is for me for me it's a little sweet you know what it is what okay here's a little a insight into trish and i's younger days uh oh yeah can we

[01:00:21] cut it right here please so we used to spend a lot of time on putting bay for those of you who don't know what it is look it up anyway uh the house that we used to stay in do you remember

[01:00:36] when we found the apple pucker that had been there for god knows how long and it tasted years and years and years yes okay so i'm not saying the buzz ball tastes dusty

[01:00:48] but it definitely tastes like apple pucker and i'm having flashbacks and that may be why i'm traumatized oh that would make total sense and then i would say shout out to grammy and

[01:01:00] grandpa oh shout out to grammy and papa yeah grammy and papa yes and on that note we need to end this one yeah so we hope you guys have enjoyed our tour back into um our young lives

[01:01:14] as i think we've uh captured several of those uh i will say to you thank you as always for tuning in we do appreciate you if you do have any suggestions um like the buzz balls

[01:01:27] something really different but still wine based um please let us know follow us on social and julie subscribe wherever you get your podcast and cheers cheers