Synopses & Reviews
Good employees are hard to find, and they can be easy to lose. But there's a simple tool every manager can use to ensure that star performers and solid contributors alike will feel energized, engaged, and excited—and that they will give you fair warning if they're unhappy. It's called the stay interview, and this book is the manager's definitive guide, written by the women who created the concept. The idea is simple: ask people how they like their jobs and what would keep them there. Worried that your talented people will want things you can't deliver, like more money or a big promotion? Kaye and Jordan-Evans have a simple four-step process for dealing with that. Feel just plain awkward about doing stay interviews? They explain how to create an atmosphere that will make the interview more comfortable and provide dozens of suggested questions and icebreakers, as well as tips for easing any performance anxiety you might feel. Think you don't have time? They offer all kinds of options for where, when, and how you can do stay interviews, from folding them into other business processes to doing them casually, like on a walk to get a cup of coffee.
Stay interviews prevent exit interviews. They cost nothing, and the price of not doing them—in lost talent and time—can be huge. Now that you have the most practical, authoritative, soup-to-nuts guide available, you have no excuse. Just ask!
Review
“Before reading this book, I thought interviewing people stopped once they were hired. The simple, pragmatic ideas and strategies in this gem of a book are just what I need to keep the great people I have.” —Beth Loeb Davies, Director of Employee Development, Tesla Motors
“The inventors of stay interviews have produced a terrific playbook to help managers everywhere successfully meet today's pressing challenge of talent retention and engagement.”—Kevin D. Wilde, Vice President, Talent and Organization Capabilities, General Mills
“I'm amazed at how many managers don't tell their good people how much they care about them and want them to stay until they're in the middle of the exit interview. Read this book and use stay interviews to keep your best people happy and productive.”—Ken Blanchard, coauthor of
The One Minute Manager® and Great Leaders Grow“This book is a great follow-up to Love 'Em or Lose 'Em. The authors provide practical and easy-to-use guidelines for making stay interviews an effective engagement tool.” —Scott Sibella, President and Chief Operating Officer, MGM Grand Hotel and Casino“No one knows more about retention and motivation of top talent than Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans—and no one gives better advice on how to retain your high performers. Brief, to the point, and packed full of practical tips, Hello Stay Interviews, Goodbye Talent Loss is a sparkling gem of a book. I highly recommend it.” —Jim Kouzes, coauthor of The Leadership Challenge “Sometimes simpler is better. To win the war for talent, Bev and Sharon have developed an amazingly simple, powerful, and useful idea: the stay interview. By doing stay interviews, managers learn what employees want, help employees feel better about themselves, and increase retention of the organization's most valuable assets.”—Dave Ulrich, Rensis Likert Professor of Business Administration, University of Michigan, and Partner, The RBL Group“All seasoned managers have experienced the nightmare: you're up to your eyebrows in work and suddenly your star performer hands in a resignation. Could you have done anything sooner to avoid this? The answer is a resounding
yes! Adding Kaye and Jordan-Evans's stay interview to your management playbook will create a much happier and more productive workplace for everyone!”—Marshall Goldsmith, author of What Got You Here Won't Get You There“This book is brilliant. If you plan on increasing your level of engagement or improving your existing performance management processes, or want to know how to keep your best employees, this is the perfect book for you.”—Louis Carter, founder and CEO, Best Practice Institute and Skillrater“It's imperative that managers at all levels have effective tools to retain the best talent in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Hello Stay Interviews, Goodbye Talent Loss is just such a tool! It provides proven strategies that will guide leaders to take the most effective steps to keep and engage their stars!”—Mark Ferrara, Vice President, Talent Management, Eli Lilly and Company“A much needed and required book for growing organizations worldwide.”—Rajeev Agarwal, CEO, MAQ Software“Having both conducted and been the recipient of stay interviews, I can attest that they work. This is a great book for any leader, no matter what size the team.”—Troy Hayes, Psy.D., Director of Talent, Leadership and Organization Development, Ingersoll Rand“Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans have yet again provided managers a practical, valuable, easy read with great insights.
Hello Stay Interviews, Goodbye Talent Loss truly is a manager's playbook on how to have short, effective, ongoing conversations with employees that result in their feeling valued and productive. Stay interviews are something we all should be doing as leaders!”—Don Kraft, Head of Career and Learning, Genentech, Inc.“Bev and Sharon provide a practical approach to help you prepare for and get the most out of these critical conversations. Read this book and you will increase your leadership effectiveness and maximize the engagement of those you lead.”—Tim Tobin, Vice President, Global Leadership Development, Marriott International, and author of Your Leadership Story“The war for talent is raging around the globe. So when you land A-players, it is critical you keep them. Beverly and Sharon's stay interview is precisely the practical solution a leader needs to significantly up the odds of retaining key people.”
—Verne Harnish, CEO, Gazelles, and author of Scaling Up“Hello Stay Interviews, Goodbye Talent Loss provides an easy-to-follow playbook that any manager can apply to get those important conversations underway. Stay interviews help managers achieve healthy relationships with their employees and retain their ‘keepers.'”—Michelle Prince, Senior Vice President, Talent Management, Randstad North America“The simple and practical tools in this book, applied regularly, will engender greater trust in you as a leader and improve the performance of your unit tenfold. Bev and Sharon have taken away any excuse you might have for
not conducting a powerful and effective stay interview.”—Tina Sung, Vice President, Government Transformation and Agency Partnerships, Partnership for Public Service Synopsis
Since 1999 Bev Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans have been teaching managers how to conduct stay interviews, a concept they originated. It seems so simple--just ask what would make your key employees stay. Yet most managers will admit they are not conducting stay interviews (and their bosses are not conducting them either!). Why? Because they're afraid of opening Pandora's box. They ask, "What if I ask my talented people what will keep them and they all say money or a promotion or a Tesla?" Good point. So the fear of being unable to deliver on someone's request gets in the way of having the most crucial dialogue of all. This book highlights why stay interviews are important; it underscores the real costs of talent lost, both tangible and intangible. Kaye and Jordan-Evans teach managers to hold these conversations and to do so with joy--not dread. They equip them with an easy four-step process they can use when an employee tosses them a tough-to-deliver-on request. It works like magic. There is to date no stay interview guide designed for and written directly to managers; this will be the first.
Synopsis
Stay interviews prevent exit interviews! You can't afford to lose them. They're your stars and your solid citizens. You wonder if they're happy in your organization—and what might keep them there. To find out, you could:
A. Conduct a survey—then try to guess who said what.
B. Take note of their latest tattoos. Is your company logo among them?
C. Ask, “What will keep you here?”
The correct answer is C. It's the opening line of a great stay interview, and it could make the difference between keeping and losing your best people.
Worried that your talented people will want things you can't deliver, like more money or a big promotion? Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans have a simple four-step process for dealing with that. Not sure how to get started? They provide dozens of suggested questions and icebreakers. Think you don't have time? They offer all kinds of creative time-saving options for where, when, and how you can do stay interviews.
About the Author
Beverly Kaye is the founder of Career Systems International (CSI), a global leader in developing and delivering innovative and action-based talent management solutions. CSI's clients include more than 60 percent of the Fortune's 1000 companies.Sharon Jordan-Evans is president of the Jordan Evans Group and is a pioneer in the field of employee engagement and retention. She is a sought-after keynote speaker for Fortune 500 companies such as American Express, Boeing, Disney, Microsoft, Lockheed, Monster, and Universal Studios.
Table of Contents
PrefaceInvitation
1. Why Bother?
2. Is it Art or Science?
3. What's Holding You Back?
4. What Else is Worrying You?
5. Do They Trust You Enough?
6. Will You Make the Time?
7. Have You Noticed Lately?
8. Does Practice Make Perfect?
9. How's That Working for You?
Parting Note [or "High Note" -- copy editor can help decide]
Acknowledgments
Index
About the Authors