Exit interviews are often used to find out why departing employees flew the coop. Business professor John Sullivan proposes a better strategy: Determine the reasons why key employees stay at your organization and reinforce those factors whenever and wherever possible.
But how can employers determine what keeps key employees happily moored? Sullivan recommends what he calls “stay” interviews, in which managers periodically sit down with top-performing employees and ask key questions to suss out the fundamental reasons why they like their jobs.“It’s too late if you’re asking people why they’re leaving,” says Sullivan, a professor of management at San Francisco State
